Reconciling cost-effectiveness with the rule of rescue: the institutional division of moral labour

Shepley Orr () and Jonathan Wolff ()

Theory and Decision, 2015, vol. 78, issue 4, 525-538

Abstract: Cost-effectiveness analysis suggests that a society should allocate its health care budget in order to achieve the greatest total health for its budget. However, in ‘rescue’ cases, where an individual’s life is in immediate peril, reasoning in terms of cost-effectiveness can appear inhumane. Hence considerations of cost-effectiveness and of rescue appear to be in tension. However, by attending to the division of labour in medical decision making it is possible to see how cost-effectiveness analysis and rescue-style reasoning are commonly combined in an ethically acceptable fashion. Copyright The Author(s) 2015

Keywords: Cost-effectiveness analysis; Rule of rescue; QALY; Health Care Resources (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1007/s11238-014-9434-3

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