Norwegian priority guidelines: Estimating the distributional implications across age, gender and SES

Abstract Objective Targeting hospital treatment at patients with high priority would seem to be a natural policy response to the growing gap between what can be done and what can be financed in the specialist health care sector. The paper examines the distributional consequences of this policy. Meth...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Health policy (Amsterdam) 2010-05, Vol.95 (2), p.264-270
Main Authors: Carlsen, Fredrik, Kaarboe, Oddvar M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Age Factors
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Child
Distribution
Elective treatment
Estimation
Female
Gender
Guidelines as Topic
Health administration
Health Care Rationing - organization & administration
Health Priorities - organization & administration
Health services
Health Services Research
Hospital treatment
Hospitalization - statistics & numerical data
Hospitals
Humans
Infant
Internal Medicine
Male
Medical treatment
Medicine - organization & administration
Middle Aged
National Health Programs
Needs Assessment
Norway
Patient Selection
Priorities
Prioritization
Prioritization Elective treatment Socioeconomic status Distribution
Public health
Regional Health Planning
Registries
Regression Analysis
Sex Factors
Socioeconomic Factors
Socioeconomic status
Waiting Lists
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Abstract Objective Targeting hospital treatment at patients with high priority would seem to be a natural policy response to the growing gap between what can be done and what can be financed in the specialist health care sector. The paper examines the distributional consequences of this policy. Method 450 000 elective patients are allocated to priority groups on the basis of medical guidelines developed by one of the regional health authorities in Norway. Probit models are estimated explaining priority status as a function of age, gender and socioeconomic status. Results Women and older people are overrepresented among patients with low priority. Conditional on age, women with low priority have lower income and less education than women with high priority. Among men below 50 years, patients with low priority have less education than patients with high priority. Conclusion Targeting hospital treatment at patients with high priority, though sensible from a pure medical perspective, may have undesirable distributional consequences.
ISSN:0168-8510
1872-6054
DOI:10.1016/j.healthpol.2009.12.003