Bribing doctors for preferential treatment is rampant in the healthcare system of developing countries like Vietnam. Although bribery raises the out-of-pocket expenditures of patients, it is so common to be deemed an “envelope culture.” Given the little understanding of the underlying mechanism of the culture, this study employed the mindsponge theory for reasoning the mental processes of both patients and doctors for why they embrace the “envelope culture” and used the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics to validate our reasoning. (...) Analyzing responses from 1042 Vietnamese patients, we discovered that bribing doctors can help patients reduce the destitution risk induced by treatment. Such effect of doctor bribery remains consistent among patients that have to pay high daily costs (e.g., accommodation and subsistence fees) regardless of their employment status. Nevertheless, for patients with no or unstable jobs, their risks of destitution increase if they have to pay more thank-you money. These findings suggest that doctor bribery is an adaptive strategy for patients in an environment where the healthcare supply cannot meet the actual demand. Moreover, healthcare equity is greatly exacerbated due to the envelope culture, as vulnerable individuals are exposed to a greater threat of poverty. At the same time, those with good economic conditions get preferential treatment by paying a higher amount of thank-you money. Healthcare workers’ ethics must be the top priority for an equitable and proper healthcare system. (shrink)

The COVID‐ 19 pandemic is a critical test for the already overburdened and mostly underfunded public healthcare systems of Latin America. In a region that suffers from severe inequalities, public healthcare systems are the only source of medical care for a large sector of the population who work in the informal economy or are unemployed. State‐run hospitals and clinics are already overstressed by continuous demand for treatment of vector‐borne diseases and community‐acquired infections as well as high (...) rates of non‐communicable diseases. Ideological misconceptions and denial among Latin America’s political leaders prevented timely preparations for the pandemic and added to chronic governance problems. As ethical expertise in Latin America focuses on research ethics, few hospitals in the region have functioning clinical ethics committees or clinical ethics policy, forcing healthcare personnel to make excruciating treatment decisions in an environment dominated by material scarcity and public distrust. This essay examines the emergence of COVID‐19 in Latin America and the serious challenge that it poses for Latin America's public healthcare systems. (shrink)

National healthcare systems in all countries do not act effectively. Therefore, especially strategies for introducing organizational innovation to public organization should be considered. The problem is how to organize the research in this field. One of the generally accepted solutions is the systemic approach to healthcare systems. In this paper multiagent systems theory and autonomous systems theory are applied to the analysis of main types of healthcare systems. Such analysis allows us to (...) consider the system properties: the level of the autonomy, energy dissipation in the system, the payoff specificity, functional role of the agents in the system, the level of the agents’ cooperation, and delays in flows of money, requests, rules, and controls. As a result, some new functionalities of the healthcare system on the national level have been found and analysed. The aforementioned parameters are good tools to analyse the system functionality. (shrink)

Limited health literacy is a pervasive and independent risk factor for poor health outcomes. Despite decades of reports exhibiting that the healthcare system is overly complex, unneeded complexity remains commonplace and endangers the lives of patients, especially those with limited health literacy. In this article, we define health literacy and describe the empirical evidence associating health literacy and poor health outcomes. We recast the issue of poor health literacy from within the ethical perspective of the least well-off and argue (...) that poor health outcomes deriving from limited health literacy ought to be understood as a fundamental injustice of the healthcare system. We offer three proposals that attempt to rectify this injustice, including: universal precautions that presume limited health literacy for all healthcare users; expanded use of technology supported communication; and clinical incentives that account for limited health literacy. (shrink)

Medicine is not merely a job that requires technical expertise, but a profession concerned with making the best decisions and recommendations with reference to, and in consultation with, the patient. This means that the skill set required for healthcare professionals in order to provide good care is a combination of scientific knowledge, technical aptitude, and affective qualities or virtues such as compassion and empathy.

This article focuses on healthcare ethics discussions in Estonia. We begin with an overview of the reform policies that the healthcare institutions have undergone since the region regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The principles of distributing healthcare services and questions regarding just what ethical healthcare should look like have received abundant coverage in the national media. An example of this is the exceptionally public case of V—a woman with leukemia whose expensive drugs the (...) national health insurance fund refused to compensate. In our subsequent discussion, we focus on a grand-scale local healthcare and research project—the Estonian Genome Project—that attempts to include 1 million DNA samples into one database. (shrink)

Encompassing health care systems in modern welfarestates embody several forms of solidarity: between thesick and the healthy, the old and the young andbetween those who take good care of their health onthe one hand and fellow citizens who choose to risktheir lives by smoking or unsafe sex on the other. Thelatter form is called lifestyle solidarity. In theNetherlands this type of solidarity has become theobject of a debate between medical ethicists. Mostmedical ethicist seem to want to uphold lifestylesolidarity. Most (...) Dutch citizens agree with them. TheDutch government, however, embarked on a project tochange the health care system by transferring stateresponsibilities to other actors (employers, insurers,individuals). This changing policy may diminish ordestroy lifestyle solidarity despite the fact that noone intended this to happen. (shrink)

The WHO Consultative Group on Equity and Universal Health Coverage published a comprehensive report titled “Making Fair Choices on the Path to Universal Health Coverage” detailing strategies that countries should adopt when moving towards providing healthcare coverage to the entire population. The report provides detailed guidelines on how to expand coverage to more people, what services should be covered, and how to prioritize these healthcare resources in achieving universal healthcare coverage. The main goal of this WHO report (...) is to ensure fair and equitable access for all population groups within a country during the implementation of UHC. In principle, the group’s approach is sound and fair, but we argue that each country must take into account its own unique situations in designing a pathway towards UHC. China has achieved near UHC but did so by an approach that would have been deemed completely unacceptable based on this group’s recommendations. In this article, we provide a brief review of the Chinese healthcare system and argue that the implementation of the recommendations in the report is not always feasible. We argue that there are alternate pathways towards achieving UHC and there are good reasons for China’s departure from the approach outlined by the WHO report. Nevertheless, we acknowledge substantial inequities still exist for various segments of the population and among the diverse areas of China in accessing healthcare services and make suggestions on how to reduce such inequities within the system. (shrink)

In modern representative democracies, much healthcare is publicly funded or provided and so the question of what healthcare systems should do is a matter of public policy. Given that public resources are inevitably limited, what should be done and who should benefit from healthcare? It is a dilemma for policymakers and a subject of debate within several disciplines, but rarely across disciplines. In this paper, I draw on thinking from several disciplines and especially philosophy, economics, and (...) systems theory. I conclude that economist and philosopher John Broome’s writing provides the framework for an answer: a healthcare system in a democracy should do as much good as possible, although sometimes we should sacrifice some overall good for the sake of fairness. This leaves open some detailed questions about what in practice we consider to be good and fair, and about when some good should be traded off in order to be fair. The answers to these questions depend on our values, or as explained by systems theory, our weltanschauung. How policy decisions should be made when citizens’ values differ is a subject of extensive academic debate. However, it is a separate question. Representative democracies have mechanisms for resolving such debates. (shrink)

The burdens of resource constraints in publicly funded healthcare systems urge decision makers in countries like Sweden, Norway and the UK to find new financial solutions. One proposal that has been put forward is co-payment—a financial model where some treatment or care is made available to patients who are willing and able to pay the costs that exceed the available alternatives fully covered by public means. Co-payment of this sort has been associated with various ethical concerns. These range (...) from worries that it has a negative impact on patients' wellbeing and on health care institutions, to fears that co-payment is in conflict with core values of publicly funded health care systems. This article provides an overview of the main ethical issues associated with co-payment, and ethical arguments both in support of and against it will be presented and analyzed. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 6, June 2019, Page 19-21.

Background In the UK, the solidaristic character of the NHS makes it one of the most trusted public institutions. In recent years, the introduction of data-driven technologies in healthcare has opened up the space for collaborations with private digital companies seeking access to patient data. However, these collaborations appear to challenge the public’s trust in the. Main text In this paper we explore how the opening of the healthcare sector to private digital companies challenges the existing social contract (...) and the NHS’s solidaristic character, and impacts on public trust. We start by critically discussing different examples of partnerships between the NHS and private companies that collect and use data. We then analyse the relationship between trust and solidarity, and investigate how this relationship changes in the context of digital companies entering the healthcare system. Finally, we show ways for the NHS to maintain public trust by putting in place a solidarity grounded partnership model with companies seeking to access patient data. Such a model would need to serve collective interests through, for example, securing preferential access to goods and services, providing health benefits, and monitoring data access. Conclusion A solidarity grounded partnership model will help establish a social contract or licence that responds to the public’s expectations and to principles of a solidaristic healthcare system. (shrink)

Charles de Gaulle once famously complained about the difficulty of governing a nation with 250 different kinds of cheese. His comment is a true description of France’s diversity and its population. We are like a loud, unruly family always arguing among ourselves. However, as much as we disagree, there is one thing on which we French stand united—we love our healthcare system and do not want it changed, even as economic realities make it increasingly difficult to maintain.

We explore how principles predicting the success of a medical information commons advantaged or disadvantaged three MIC initiatives in three Canadian provinces. Our MIC case examples demonstrate that practices and policies to promote access to and use of health information can help improve individual healthcare and inform a learning health system. MICs were constrained by heterogenous health information protection laws across jurisdictions and risk-averse institutional cultures. A networked approach to MICs would unlock even more potential for national and international (...) data collaborations to improve health and healthcare. (shrink)

The Danish healthcare system must meet the need for easy and equal access to healthcare for every citizen. However, investigations have shown unfair prioritization of cancer patients and unfair prioritization of resources for expensive medicines over care. What is needed are principles for proper prioritization. This article investigates whether American ethicists Tom Beauchamp and James Childress’s principle of justice may be helpful as a conceptual framework for reflections on prioritization of expensive biological therapies in the Danish healthcare (...) system. We present an empirical study exploring the principles for prioritizing new expensive biological therapies. This study includes qualitative interviews with key Danish stakeholders experienced in antibody therapy and prioritizing resources for expensive medicines. Beauchamp and Childress’s model only covers government-funded primary and acute healthcare. Based on the interviews, this study indicates that to be helpful in a Danish context this model should include equal access for citizens to government-funded primary and acute healthcare, costly medicine, and other scarce treatments. We conclude that slightly modified, Beauchamp and Childress’s principle of justice might be useful as a conceptual framework for reflections on the prioritization of expensive biological therapies in the Danish healthcare system. (shrink)

Stresses on healthcare systems and moral distress among clinicians are urgent, intertwined bioethical problems in contemporary healthcare. Yet conceptualizations of moral distress in bioethical inquiry often overlook a range of routine threats to professional integrity in healthcare work. Using examples from our research on frontline physicians working during the COVID-19 pandemic, this article clarifies conceptual distinctions between moral distress, moral injury, and moral stress and illustrates how these concepts operate together in healthcare work. Drawing from (...) the philosophy of healthcare, we explain how moral stress results from the normal operations of overstressed systems; unlike moral distress and moral injury, it may not involve a sense of powerlessness concerning patient care. The analysis of moral stress directs attention beyond the individual, to stress-generating systemic factors. We conclude by reflecting on how and why this conceptual clarity matters for improving clinicians’ professional wellbeing, and offer preliminary pathways for intervention. (shrink)

This article aims to highlight the healthcare issues raised by COVID-19 in Pakistan’s scenario. Initially, Pakistan lacked “standard operating procedures,” and the government had to ship testing kits from China and Japan. Moreover, due to violations of the lockdown and standard operating procedures (SOPs), the rapidly increasing number of cases created a burden on the healthcare system. More and more, this pandemic and its impact have grown. As vaccine development has not been successful yet, “herd immunity” can only (...) be achieved if about three quarters of the population contract the virus—requiring immuno￾compromised citizens to be sacrificed for the sake of the country. Moreover, Pakistan has limited testing capacity, so most COVID-19 tests are missing their mark even as the virus spreads. The current scenario is also raising several concerns about the capacity of the government to tackle the prevailing healthcare crisis. In this regard, healthcare professionals suggest that the government must act responsibly to ensure better security provided to healthcare professionals. Identifying suspected cases, introducing personal protective equipment, and taking administrative measures to ensure that better security is provided to healthcare professionals are the needs of the hour to improve outcomes of COVID-19 patients. Testing, tracking, and lockdowns must be focused on areas where clusters are detected. The healthcare professionals must be given utmost protection before this pan￾demic could wreak havoc in terms of fatalities. Investing in the chronically underfunded healthcare system is needed, so that Pakistan can build capacity to fight the pandemic. (shrink)

Clinicians and administrators have a professional obligation to contribute to improvement of healthcare quality. At the same time, participation in embedded research poses risks to healthcare institutions. Disclosure of an institution’s sensitive information could endanger relationships with patients and undermine its reputation. The existing ethical framework for learning healthcare systems does not address the conflict between the OTC and institutional interests. Ethical guidance and policy regulation are needed to create a safe environment for embedded research. In (...) this article we analyse the EF for LHSs and the concept of professionalism. We suggest that the EF should be supplemented with an obligation to protect provider’s legitimate interests. We define legitimate interests as those that enable providers to discharge their primary duties. We argue that both the OTC and the obligation to protect legitimate interests are grounded in the concept of medical professionalism and can be understood as a matter of contract between a democratic society and medical professionals. The proposed supplemented EF can be implemented into a regulatory system in three different ways: the self-regulating: where providers decide themselves how to balance the ethical claims, the centralised: where a governmental institution decides the right balance between providers’ interests and interests of a health system; and the mediating: where medical professionals, the state and patients negotiate their interests. Our article contributes to the discussion on ethical relevance of providers’ interests and the regulatory model for weighing opposite interests in LHSs. (shrink)

In modern representative democracies, much healthcare is publicly funded or provided and so the question of what healthcare systems should do is a matter of public policy. Given that public resources are inevitably limited, what should be done and who should benefit from healthcare? It is a dilemma for policymakers and a subject of debate within several disciplines, but rarely across disciplines. In this paper, I draw on thinking from several disciplines and especially philosophy, economics, and (...) systems theory. I conclude that economist and philosopher John Broome’s writing provides the framework for an answer: a healthcare system in a democracy should do as much good as possible, although sometimes we should sacrifice some overall good for the sake of fairness. This leaves open some detailed questions about what in practice we consider to be good and fair, and about when some good should be traded off in order to be fair. The answers to these questions depend on our values, or as explained by systems theory, our weltanschauung. How policy decisions should be made when citizens’ values differ is a subject of extensive academic debate. However, it is a separate question. Representative democracies have mechanisms for resolving such debates. (shrink)

In medical ethics, an appropriate national healthcare system that meets the requirements of justice in healthcare resource allocation is a major concern. Japan is no exception to this trend, and the pros and cons of introducing a two-tier healthcare system, which permits insured medical care services to be provided along with services not covered by social health insurance, have been the subject of debate for many years. The Supreme Court ruled in 2011 that it was valid for (...) the government to ban mixing medical treatments and both the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and Japanese Medical Association oppose the introduction of such a system. In this paper, we examine the main arguments against the introduction of a two-tier healthcare system and ideas that form their basis, which can be broadly divided into opinions based on the importance of equality and those derived from the logical conclusion that the outcomes would be detrimental. We point out issues and shortcomings of each standpoint and argue that the introduction of the system would not necessarily threaten equality and social solidarity in Japanese society, and that abuses of a self-pay tier would be controllable to a certain extent. Then, the authors—who do not actively promote the introduction of a two-tier healthcare system—conclude that the allegation that is completely devoted to one side and the theory that social healthcare is collapsing, which makes the public excessively nervous, cannot be accepted. (shrink)

For the last fifty years, the United States healthcare system has done an extremely poor job of delivering healthcare in a just and fair manner. The United States holds the dubious distinction of being the only industrialized nation in the world lacking provisions to ensure universal coverage. We attempt to provide some of the reasons this dysfunctional system has persisted and show that healthcare should not be a commodity. We begin with a brief historical overview of (...) class='Hi'>healthcare delivery in the United States since WWII. This is followed by a critical analysis of the for-profit model including reasons to support the view that healthcare should not be a free market commodity. We also demonstrate how special interest groups have been able to win support for their practices based on propaganda rather than fact. A brief analysis of the Affordable Care Act is offered along with critical comments regarding its ineffectiveness. We conclude with a brief overview of international approaches that have resulted in universal coverage and suggest the United States ought to adopt an approach similar to those outlined so that it no longer stands as the only industrialized nation to ignore the glaring problems that exist. (shrink)

This book focuses on justice and its demands in the way of providing people with medical care. Building on recent insights on the nature of moral perceptions and motivations from the neurosciences, it makes a case for the traditional medical ethic and examines its financial feasibility. The book starts out by giving an account of the concept of justice and tracing it back to the practices and tenets of Hippocrates and his followers, while taking into account findings from the neurosciences. (...) Next, it considers whether the claim that it is just to limit medical care for everyone to some basic minimum is justifiable. The book then addresses finances and expenditures of the US health care system and shows that the growth of expenditures and the percentage of the gross national product spent on health care make for an unsustainable trajectory. In light of the question what should be changed, the book suggests that overdiagnosis and medicalizing normal behavior lead to harmful, costly and unnecessary interventions and are the result of unethical behavior on the part of the pharmaceutical industry and extensive ethical failures of the FDA. The book ends with suggestions about what can be done to put the U.S. health care system on the path to sustainability, better medical care, and compliance with the demands of justice. (shrink)

This article focuses on patients' participation in decision‐making in meetings with healthcare professionals in a healthcare system, based on neoliberal regulations and ideas. Drawing on two constructed empirical cases, primarily from the perspective of patients, this article analyses and discusses the clinical practice around decision‐making meetings within a Foucauldian perspective. Patients' participation in decision‐making can be seen as an offshoot of respect for patient autonomy. A treatment must be chosen, when patients consult physicians. From the perspective of patients, (...) there is a tendency for healthcare professionals to supply the patients with the information that they think are necessary for them to make their own decision. But patients do not always want to be a ‘customer’ in the healthcare system; they want to be a patient, consulting an expert for help and advice, which creates resistance to some parts of the decision‐making process. Both professionals and patients are subject to the structural frame of the medical field, formed of both neoliberal framework and medical logic. The decision‐making competence in relation to the choice of treatment is placed away from the professionals and seen as belonging to the patient. A ‘projectification’ of the patient occurs, whereby the patient becomes responsible for his/her choices in treatment and care and the professionals support him/her with knowledge, preferences, and alternative views, out of which he/she must make his/her own choices, and the responsibility for those choices now and in the future. At the same time, there is a tendency towards de‐professionalization. In that light, participation of patients in decision‐making can be regarded as a tacit governmentality strategy that shapes the location of responsibility between individual and society, and independent patients and healthcare professionals, despite the basically desirable, appropriate, and necessary idea of involving patients in their own situations from a humanistic perspective. (shrink)

Increasing adoption of electronic health records in hospitals provides new opportunities for patient data to support public health advances. Such learning healthcare models have generated ethical debate in high-income countries, including on the role of patient and public consent and engagement. Increasing use of electronic health records in low-middle income countries offers important potential to fast-track healthcare improvements in these settings, where a disproportionate burden of global morbidity occurs. Core ethical issues have been raised around the role and (...) form of information sharing processes for learning healthcare systems, including individual consent and individual and public general notification processes, but little research has focused on this perspective in low-middle income countries. We conducted a qualitative study on the role of information sharing and governance processes for inpatient data re-use, using in-depth interviews with 34 health stakeholders at two public hospitals on the Kenyan coast, including health managers, providers and researchers. Data were collected between March and July 2016 and analysed using a framework approach, with Nvivo 10 software to support data management. Most forms of clinical data re-use were seen as an important public health good. Individual consent and general notification processes were often argued as important, but contingent on interrelated influences of the type of data, use and secondary user. Underlying concerns were linked to issues of patient privacy and autonomy; perceived risks to trust in health systems; and fairness in how data would be used, particularly for non-public sector re-users. Support for engagement often turned on the anticipated outcomes of information-sharing processes, as building or undermining trust in healthcare systems. As reported in high income countries, learning healthcare systems in low-middle counties may generate a core ethical tension between supporting a public good and respecting patient autonomy and privacy, with the maintenance of public trust acting as a core requirement. While more evidence is needed on patient and public perspectives on learning healthcare activities, greater collaboration between public health and research governance systems is likely to support the development of efficient and locally responsive learning healthcare activities in LMICs. (shrink)

Limited health literacy is a pervasive and independent risk factor for poor health outcomes. Despite decades of reports exhibiting that the healthcare system is overly complex, unneeded complexity remains commonplace and endangers the lives of patients, especially those with limited health literacy. In this article, we define health literacy and describe the empirical evidence associating health literacy and poor health outcomes. We recast the issue of poor health literacy from within the ethical perspective of the least well-off and argue (...) that poor health outcomes deriving from limited health literacy ought to be understood as a fundamental injustice of the healthcare system. We offer three proposals that attempt to rectify this injustice, including: universal precautions that presume limited health literacy for all healthcare users; expanded use of technology supported communication; and clinical incentives that account for limited health literacy. (shrink)

Lifestyle-induced diseases are becoming a burden on healthcare, actualizing the discussion on health responsibilities. Using data from the National Association for Heart and Lung Diseases ’s 2015 Health Survey, this study examined the public’s attitudes towards personal and social health responsibility in a Norwegian population. The questionnaires covered self-reported health and lifestyle, attitudes towards personal responsibility and the authorities’ responsibility for promoting health, resource-prioritisation and socio-demographic characteristics. Block-wise multiple linear regression assessed the association between attitudes towards health responsibilities and (...) individual lifestyle, political orientation and health condition. We found a moderate support for social responsibility across political views. Respondents reporting unhealthier eating habits, smokers and physically inactive were less supportive of health promotion policies. The idea that individuals are responsible for taking care of their health was widely accepted as an abstract ideal. Yet, only a third of the respondents agreed with introducing higher co-payments for treatment of ‘self-inflicted’ conditions and levels of support were patterned by health-related behaviour and left-right political orientation. Our study suggests that a significant support for social responsibility does not exclude a strong support for personal health responsibility. However, conditional access to healthcare based on personal lifestyle is still controversial. (shrink)

As one of the most effective medical technologies for the infertile patients, in vitro fertilization has been more and more widely developed in recent years. However, prolonged waiting for IVF procedures has become a problem of great concern, since this technology is only mastered by the large general hospitals. To deal with the insufficiency of IVF service capacity, this paper studies an IVF queuing network in an integrated cloud healthcare system, where the two key medical services, that is, egg (...) retrieval and transplantation, are assigned to accomplish in the general hospital, while the routine medical tests are assigned into the community hospital. Based on continuous-time Markov procedure, a dynamic large-scale server scheduling problem in this complicated service network is modeled with consideration of different arrival rates of multiple type of patients and different service capacities of multiple servers that can be defined as doctors of the general hospital. To solve this model, a reinforcement learning algorithm is proposed, where the reward functions are designed for four conflicting subcosts: setup cost, patient waiting cost, penalty cost for unsatisfied patient personal preferences, and medical cost of patient. The experimental results show that the optimal service rule of each server’s queue obtained by the RL method is significantly superior to the traditional service rule. (shrink)

The advance in Internet of Things technology has increased the opportunities for a healthcare system design, which is an urgent need owing to the growth in population among the older adults in many countries. This requires giving thought to the kind of innovative technological design methods that can find suitable solutions for home care. The application of Health Smart Homes by means of the technologies of the Internet of Things, can be used to support rehabilitation treatment and help the (...) senior citizens to understand the importance of taking measures to maintain a healthy standard of living that can meet their needs. The aim of this article is to develop and assess a design method for the following purposes: to determine and map out the physical and emotional state of the home care users, such as senior citizens; to implement a participatory design that includes the user within its social, psychological and therapeutic context; to explore the flexible method when applied to older users; to provide a way for the users to be “personalized” through a wide range of solutions that involve analyzing the behavioral patterns of different individuals in a standardized manner and to define a set of smart technologies for each problem and senior citizen. This article sets out a collaborative method called FlexPersonas, which is employed for the flexible mapping of users and to improve decision-making with the support of Internet of Things technologies. In this context, computing systems can identify the behavior of the user and issue warnings to the Carers about any abnormal event. Studies with an interdisciplinary team point out the potential and drawbacks of the method. (shrink)

The state subvention and distribution of health care not only jeopardize the financial sustainability of the state, but also restrict without a conclusive rational basis the freedom of patients to decide how much health care and of what quality is worth what price. The dominant biopolitics of European health care supports a healthcare monopoly in the hands of the state and the medical profession, which health care should be opened to the patient’s authority to deal directly for better basic (...) health care. In a world where it is impossible for all to receive equal access to the best of basic health care, one must critically examine the plausible scope of the authority of the state to limit access to better basic health care. Classical distributive justice affords a basis for re-examining the current European ideology of equality, human dignity, and solidarity that supports healthcare systems with unsustainable egalitarian concerns. (shrink)

Healthcare providers have been central actors in containing the COVID-19 pandemic. Although potentially very beneficial, the implementation of large-scale rapid serological tests raises ethical dilemmas and affects HCPs’ capacity to work in optimal conditions. In this regard, we call for attention to address specific and urgent ethical issues distinctively affecting HCPs following the availability and possible mandatory use of rapid serological tests for COVID-19.

In a rigorous systematic review, Dukhanin and colleagues categorize metrics and evaluative tools of the engagement of patient, public, consumer, and community in decision-making in healthcare institutions and systems. The review itself is ably done and the categorizations lead to a useful understanding of the necessary elements of engagement, and a suite of measures relevant to implementing engagement in systems. Nevertheless, the question remains whether the engagement of patient representatives in institutional or systemic deliberations will lead to (...) improved clinical outcomes or increased engagement of individual patients themselves in care. Attention to the conceptual foundations of patient engagement would help make this systematic review relevant to the clinical care of patients. (shrink)

Biometrics is the science of establishing the identity of an individual based on their physical attributes. Ethical concerns surrounding the appropriate use of biometrics have been raised, especial...

Methodological strategies for the identification and synthesis of ‘evidence’ to support decision‐making in relation to complex healthcare systems and practices This paper addresses the limitations of current methods supporting ‘evidence‐based health‐care’ in relation to complex aspects of care, including those questions that are best supported by descriptive or non‐empirical evidence. The paper identifies some new methods, which may be useful in aiding the synthesis of data in these areas. The methods detailed are broadly divided into those that facilitate (...) the identification of evidence and those that enable the interpretation of the data retrieved. To illustrate some of the issues involved, reference is made to a multimethod review recently completed by the authors, which aimed to identify factors that promote continuity in the transition from child to adult health and social care. It is argued that as healthcare organisations are becoming increasingly preoccupied with the evidence base of practice, such methods may help ensure that aspects of care and approaches that are outside the dominant pharmaco‐medical domain maintain a prominent position on the healthcare agenda while remaining open to external scrutiny. Healthcare professionals who use such approaches need to know their relative utility and benefits to inform clinical decisions, so as to ensure that best practice is observed. (shrink)

This paper is an empirical study of what solidarity in a Western European healthcare system means today. Drawing upon empirical research on the 2015 refugee cohort's health needs and their health-seeking behaviour, it unites claims from the literature on solidarity in the fields of migration and healthcare. I argue that the Austrian healthcare system not only is an example of ‘civic solidarity’ in the form of institutionalised obligations to citizens but that it also enacts political forms of (...) solidarity and produces political inclusion for marginalised groups such as refugees. My findings show that being entitled to and accessing services in the healthcare system holds meaning beyond the provision of care: It enables to act autonomously, to build familiar relationships with Austrian institutions, inclusion via the personal electronic health card and to support others in the same solidaristic system. These insights can be used to raise awareness about the inclusional function of healthcare services among practitioners. They also show how solidarity-based healthcare systems can be a motor for shaping positive relationships between immigrants and the host country, and point to additional modes of solidarity in the context of forced migration next to civil society and nonstate support structures. This paper builds upon ethnographic data that were collected between 2018 and 2020 in Vienna, Austria (observational notes before, during and after medical consultations with refugees; interviews with them; interviews with healthcare practitioners and other care providers). (shrink)

The article examines and examines the research of foreign specialists in the field of economics and healthcare organization, who used a comparative approach to analysis in their works. The article examines the features of the application of mechanisms and models of health management characteristic of different countries, studied the experience of the UK, USA, Sweden, Finland, Germany and Japan. The article systematizes the views of scientists on the problem of applying comparative research in the field of healthcare. The (...) article defines generalizations that characterize almost all existing healthcare systems in the world today. Studies are shown that allow us to identify common principles of the organization of health systems in the world, but, at the same time, to identify specific regional and national conditions that become the basis of existing regional, subnational and national health systems. In Russia, at the same time, the healthcare system includes an insurance component and private medicine. The development of the modern healthcare system in Russia can be assessed as not very positive, since with a general reduction in the number of medical personnel and the number of medical institutions in the 90s, this trend is currently continuing, albeit in a more smoothed form. A common place in the development of the healthcare system remains the growth of paid medical services and the orientation of sectoral public authorities in the direction of the development of the health care market with the strengthening of the role of the private sector. The healthcare system is undergoing, on the one hand, an upswing due to the growth of investments caused by coronavirus infection, and, on the other hand, especially for "traditional" diseases, the trend outlined in previous years continues. (shrink)

Ethical problems in healthcare in Lithuania are identified, existing mechanisms that deal with them are analysed and policy implications are discussed. At least three groups of ethical problems exist in the Lithuanian healthcare system: problems in the healthcare reform process, in interprofessional interaction and in doctor–patient relationships. During the past 15 years, several diverse legal, political and administrative mechanisms have been implemented in Lithuania to tackle these problems. Despite major achievements, numerous problems persist, implying that the focus (...) should be shifted to different mechanisms and interventions. It is necessary to broaden the conceptual understanding of ethics in healthcare and focus on management ethics to tackle ethical problems in Lithuania or in other countries in transition. (shrink)

In a recent response to our paper on developing a philosophical framework to guide the design and delivery of a just health service, Sarela raises several objections. We feel that although Sarela makes points which are worthy of discussion, his critique does not undermine either the need for, or the worth of, our proposed model. First, the law does not negate the need for ethics in determining just healthcare policy. Reliance on legal processes can drive inappropriate focus on ensuring (...) policies avoid judicial review, as opposed to ensuring they are truly just; the law affords protection against unjust policies but does not put a commitment to avoiding them at the heart of policy-making. We defend the need for Scanlonian supplementation by emphasising the practical value of adding a step based on reasonable rejection, particularly in ensuring that the views of vulnerable stakeholders are robustly considered. We discuss the similarities and differences between the work of Daniels and Sen in considering the relationship between health and opportunity, concluding that Sen’s capability approach is both valuable and compatible with our proposed model. Finally, the practical use of our model requires consideration of what constitutes a reasonable person. Our model is explicitly intended to help develop a healthcare system which is just to all its users. With this in mind, we suggest that those involved in decision-making should meet Scanlon’s definition of reasonable: they should be motivated to justify their actions to, and seek agreement with, others. (shrink)

Abstract“Comprehensive Healthcare for America” is a largely single-payer reform proposal that, by applying the insights of behavioral economics, may be able to rally patients and clinicians sufficiently to overcome the opposition of politicians and vested interests to providing all Americans with less complicated and less costly access to needed healthcare.

A recent message on one of the e-mail bulletin boards sent by a college student read, “I believe that the AIDS virus was developed in government labs for the purpose of controlling black folks.” In September 1990, Essence, an African American magazine with a circulation of 900,000, had as a lead article “AIDS: Is It Genocide?” In 1991, the New York Times quoted Clarence Page, African American columnist and Pulitzer prize winner: “You could call conspiracy theories about AIDS and drugs (...) fringe ideas, but they seem, to have a large following among the black intelligentsia. … [And] you find it at all levels.” In April 1992, Lorene Gary explained in Newsweek “Why it's not just paranoia.” In that same month, another New York Times article reported: “Bizarre as it may seem to most people, many black Americans believe that AIDS and the health measures used against it are part of a conspiracy to wipe out the black race.”4 In February 1992, Science quoted Peter Breggin, director of the Center for the Study of Psychiatry in Bethesda, Maryland, as saying that research on violence “cloaks the intention to identify problem black children and then … prescribe pacifying drugs.”. (shrink)

Fox’s update of her pivotal 2007 study on ethics consultations in U.S. hospitals found that the gap in ethics consultations is widening between large teaching hospitals and small community hospital...

Background Several ethical issues are associated with providing living organ transplantation services, and there is limited information on these issues faced by the teams providing service to refugees or asylum seekers. Aim To determine the challenges healthcare professionals face in organ transplant centers providing services to Syrians under temporary protection status and discern whether these difficulties align with ethical issues in living organ transplantation. Research design This study employed a qualitative design and conducted individual semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 18 (...) transplant team members in Istanbul between September and November 2022. Data analysis was based on Braun and Clarke’s thematic analysis. Participants and research context The participants comprised 18 healthcare professionals, including 6 physicians and 12 nurses working in organ transplant teams in Istanbul. Ethical considerations The University’s Ethics Committee provided approval. Participants were informed regarding confidentiality and signed an informed consent form. Results Three themes emerged from the data on ethical issues faced by organ transplantation services to Syrians: (a) beneficence or double equipoise, (b) autonomy, and (c) justice. Transplant teams experience problems related to preserving double equipoise in the provision of living donor organ transplantation because of language barriers, poor socioeconomic conditions, and cultural factors, which increases transplant teams’ individual and indirect social burden. Although problems arise from the language barrier when obtaining informed consent in the autonomy theme, institutional and national policies in preventing donor abuse have a comforting effect. Health workers had the least problems with the justice theme, wherein national health policies are determined. Conclusion Fewer issues related to autonomy and justice were reported in providing organ transplantation services to Syrians, with the most intense reported issues being maintaining double equipoise. The results revealed the need to develop institutional, national, and international policies with individual solutions to prevent difficulties healthcare professionals face in this process. (shrink)

Rationing healthcare is a difficult task, which includes preventing patients from accessing potentially beneficial treatments. Proponents of implicit rationing argue that politicians cannot resist pressure from strong patient groups for treatments and conclude that physicians should ration without informing patients or the public. The authors subdivide this specific programme of implicit rationing, or “hidden rationing”, into local hidden rationing, unsophisticated global hidden rationing and sophisticated global hidden rationing. They evaluate the appropriateness of these methods of rationing from the perspectives (...) of individual and political autonomy and conclude that local hidden rationing and unsophisticated global hidden rationing clearly violate patients’ individual autonomy, that is, their right to participate in medical decision-making. While sophisticated global hidden rationing avoids this charge, the authors point out that it nonetheless violates the political autonomy of patients, that is, their right to engage in public affairs as citizens. A defence of any of the forms of hidden rationing is therefore considered to be incompatible with a defence of autonomy. (shrink)