Author Description

Product Description Setting Priorities in Health Care Edited by M. Malek University of St Andrews, Fife, Scotland As Western industrialised countries struggle to address the dual problems of securing access to health care and containing the ever increasing cost of health care delivery, the issue of prioritisation ranks high on the agenda of all interested parties from clinicians to policy makers. Extending waiting times for some operations (the case in the United Kingdom) or excluding a segment of the population (uninsured or under-insured in the United States) are just two ways of rationing health care resources through prioritisation, both of which demonstrate the minefield of philosophical, ethical, conceptual and methodological problems surrounding this issue. While these concerns have been openly debated in the United States, there has been very little public academic discussion on the implications and consequences of prioritisation and the inevitability of health care rationing in one form or another. This book presents such a discussion from the multi-disciplinary perspectives of health economics, health care management, marketing, policy and clinical practice. Related titles from John Wiley include: Strategic Issues in Health Care Management Edited by M. Malek, J. Rasquinha and P. Vacani Managerial Issues in the Reformed NHS Edited by M. Malek, P. Vacani, J. Rasquinha and P. Davey From the Publisher Due to the increasing cost as well as the need to secure access to health care, the issue of prioritization is brought to the forefront of the current health care debate. The implications and consequences of allocating priorities to different groups and circumstances are discussed, as well as the minefield of philosophical, conceptual, ethical and methodological problems surrounding this issue.