Health and efficiency: clinical effectiveness dissected.
If the exclusive promotion of values inimical to our basic humanity extends to the health care policy arena, we face a defensive, restricted, impersonal and ultimately impoverished health care system. Americans known it already as 'managed-care'. This is why it is crucial for health policy analysts to make explicit the role of values in policy-making, especially that involving the input of 'value-neutral' economics. The nature of any clinical effectiveness policy will be determined by the understanding of cost-effectiveness employed in its design and implementation. Given that cost-effectiveness is nowadays usually defined according to health economists' criteria, the battle over the meaning of clinical effectiveness is a significant development in health economics' move to assume control of the NHS.
Keaney
M
M
Scottish Clinical Audit Resource Centre, Department of Postgraduate Medical Education, University of Glasgow, UK.
Lorimer
A R
AR
D002983:Clinical Competence; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational; D004989:Ethics; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D006291:Health Policy; D008485:Medical Audit; D012606:Scotland; D012945:Social Values; D013222:State Medicine / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D016896:Treatment Outcome