Bottom-up priority setting revised. A second evaluation of an institutional intervention in a Swedish health care organisation.

Background: Transparent priority setting in health care based on specific ethical principles is requested by the Swedish Parliament since 1997. Implementation has been limited. In this case, transparent priority setting was performed for a second time round and engaged an entire health care organisation.

Priority setting in practice: participants opinions on vertical and horizontal priority setting for reallocation.

In the Västerbotten County Council in Sweden a priority setting process was undertaken to reallocate existing resources for funding of new methods and activities. Resources were created by limiting low priority services. A procedure for priority setting was constructed and fully tested by engaging the entire organisation.

Ethically acceptable prioritisation of childless couples and treatment rationing: "accountability for reasonableness".

Objective: With in vitro fertilisation serving as a specific case, an intervention was aimed at investigating the potential for applying prioritisation theories and methods in a real-life situation to form an evidence-based proposal that met the standards of the "Accountability for Reasonableness" Model. In turn, this case would serve as a basis for public decision on rationalisation, prioritisation and rationing, whereby given resources are allocated with respect to the ethical template of the Swedish Parliament's decision on priorities in health care.

Study Design: Management representatives of the overall county council as well as the gynaecologic-obstetric department levels, infertility treatment professionals and a patients' organisation representative worked together to create guidelines building on the ethical principles of human dignity, needs/solidarity and cost-effectiveness, on evidence of treatment effect, epidemiology and economic resources availability.

Local prioritisation work in health care--assessment of an implementation process.

Political, horizontal prioritisation requires knowledge on local health care resource use on unit or patient group level. This in turn requires unit level structures (meeting forums) and processes for creation of knowledge and continuous, open decision-making on prioritisation. Ideally, for decisions to be legitimate, such procedures should meet the "Accountability for reasonableness"-criteria of Daniels and Sabin [Daniels N.