Overcoming barriers to priority setting using interdisciplinary methods.

Area of Science:

• Health Care Management
• Decision Analysis
• Sociology
• Ethics

Background:

• Holm's 1998 paper marked a shift in health care priority setting, moving beyond simple rules to acknowledge process complexity.
• A decade later, the field requires updated tools to navigate the intricate nature of decision-making in healthcare.
• The 2nd International Conference on Priorities in Health Care highlights the need for advanced priority setting methodologies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present novel tools for researchers and decision-makers in health care priority setting.
• To advocate for an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach to developing rational, fair, and legitimate priority setting processes.
• To enhance the practical implementation of program budgeting and marginal analysis (PBMA).

Main Methods:

• Focuses on program budgeting and marginal analysis (PBMA) by integrating three distinct interdisciplinary literature strands.
• Incorporates multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) from decision analysis.
• Integrates participatory action research (PAR) from sociology.
• Includes accountability for reasonableness (AFR) from ethics.

Main Results:

• Demonstrates how combining MCDA, PAR, and AFR can enrich PBMA.
• Provides a framework for a more comprehensive and legitimate priority setting process.
• Highlights the practical utility of an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to PBMA.

Conclusions:

• An interdisciplinary and collaborative approach is essential for effective health care priority setting.
• Integrating tools like MCDA, PAR, and AFR into PBMA offers a more rational, fair, and legitimate decision-making process.
• These integrated methods can significantly assist researchers and practitioners in implementing robust priority setting.