Health Care Decisions Through Allocation of Scarce Resources

Decisions in Health Care on Scarce Resources Decisions on the best way to allocate resources in clinical research are through an evaluation of the costs associated with the research and the likely benefits to result to the society. The cost of allocating resource to clinical research is pinned against the likely benefit to result from the research. The benefit will include the quality of life gained, life year saved and the productivity of human life that would result.

The decision to undertake a particular research ignores the aspect of who is gaining more and who is incurring the higher cost. The core concern, in this case, is the overall benefit to the society (Stephen P. & James R., 1999). In other cases decisions in allocating the scarce resource are undertaken through comparisons. The measures of comparisons assess the cost effectiveness of a decision to intervene or do nothing.

The option of "Do nothing" may be unethical in many perspectives but would be ideal if the benefits likely to yield from intervention are seen to fall short in incremental benefit. For a decision to be taken through comparison, an appropriate comparator ought to be considered to yield an ideal differential value (Stephen P. & James R., 1999). If the comparison indicates intervention would yield a higher cost effective measure, then the choice to intervene should be considered.

If a wrong comparator is chosen the result then would be misleading in the decision to intervene or do nothing (Stephen P. & James R., 1999). Another measure used in determining choices in clinical research is the assessment of additional ration (Stephen P. & James R., 1999). Incremental ratio yields from dividing the incremental cost by the incremental gain. Incremental ratio is the economic concept of marginal utility associated with scarcity and choice.

In the case of incremental ratio, the additional proportional gain obtained by undertaking an additional proportional medical cost choice influences the decision taken. If the additional (marginal) gain is greater than the addition (marginal) cost, then a decision to undertake the cost is taken. Clinical research decisions are also undertaken by considering the non-marketed aspects such as patient's time and cost of informal care.

Although there are no commonly held agreements on the measure of time and the opportunity cost of the time, there is a way of determining their values. In the case of an adult in the working age brackets, the time they spend in ailment has its opportunity cost as their work or leisure hours (Stephen P. & James R., 1999). The clinical decision can be undertaken by making an assessment of the choices that will impact less on the work or leisure hours sacrificed.

Public Equity and Development of Medical Product Public equity in the development of medical products should entail provision quality service and products disregarding personal characteristics. Development of these medical products should uphold the concept of public equity by overlooking an individual's ethnicity, race and religious affiliation among other aspects (World Health Organization, 2008). Health care is more of a social product (public good) since the provision of health care.