Resource allocation
Should healthcare allocation include sustainability?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
A sustainability principle is needed so drug-price spirals, antibiotic resistance, and shortages do not quietly wreck the values other allocation principles serve.
How this study connects
Role on claims
Each row is a claim on a concept or method page where this paper supports, challenges, or qualifies the statement. Roles are hand-checked — not a model guess.
A fair decision today can undermine supply tomorrow.
A proposed sustainability principle asks allocators to count the negative dynamics their own rules cause — for example, always buying the cheapest equivalent drug can raise future prices, worsen antibiotic resistance or contribute to shortages.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Inspect source passages
Should healthcare allocation include sustainability?
These passages occur verbatim in the stored paper text. They support the points listed below; they do not verify every statement in the explanation.
What do they propose?
We propose a principle of sustainability to complement established normative principles used for justifying resource allocation in healthcare. We use three
How many cases?
three distinct cases to illustrate the need for such a complementary principle, one regarding the cost dynamics of drug procurement, one regarding the envi
Key findings
Without sustainability, operational rules (buy the cheaper clinically equivalent drug, etc.) can raise future prices, worsen resistance, or hollow out supply. Shortages are especially bad for antibiotics because of fragmented chains and low margins. The principle only asks allocators to count dynamics their own pattern causes, not every future shock.
Methodology
The authors map how health systems justify scarce-resource decisions, then use three cases—drug-procurement cost dynamics, environmental antibiotic resistance, and drug shortages—to show ‘negative dynamics’. They reply to ethical objections that adding sustainability would clash with existing principles.
Limitations
This is a principle paper, not a budget model. It does not quantify a sustainability weight. Independent shocks (pandemics, crises) are set aside.
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