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Related Experiment Videos

Cost-effectiveness analysis: is it ethical?

A Williams1

  • 1Centre for Health Economics, University of York.

Journal of Medical Ethics
|March 1, 1992
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

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Considering healthcare costs in clinical decisions is ethical, as ignoring consequences is not. Cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) reveals hidden assumptions and improves policy-maker accountability.

Area of Science:

  • Health Economics
  • Medical Ethics
  • Public Health Policy

Background:

  • Clinicians often perceive cost considerations in clinical decisions as unethical.
  • This perception overlooks the ethical imperative to consider the broader consequences of medical choices, which include costs.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To challenge the notion that incorporating costs into clinical decisions is inherently unethical.
  • To highlight the ethical complexities in measuring both costs and benefits in healthcare.
  • To advocate for systematic cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) as a tool for ethical policy-making.

Main Methods:

  • Conceptual analysis of ethical principles in healthcare decision-making.
  • Examination of assumptions underlying traditional clinical criteria (e.g., survival rates).
Keywords:
Analytical ApproachHealth Care and Public HealthNational Health Service

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  • Argument for the utility of cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) in healthcare policy.

    • Main Results:

    • Ignoring costs in clinical decisions is ethically problematic as it disregards adverse consequences for others.
    • Ethical challenges exist in quantifying both costs and benefits, including hidden assumptions in metrics like survival rates.
    • Systematic CEA exposes these assumptions and necessitates explicit ethical judgments.

    Conclusions:

    • Incorporating costs into clinical decisions is ethically justifiable and necessary.
    • Cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) provides a framework for transparent and ethical healthcare policy.
    • CEA enhances accountability of policy-makers to the public they serve.