The conventional quality-adjusted life years approach to resource allocation has greater societal value if it is distributed among many rather than concentrated on a few, assuming that severity of illness is the same.
Chris Feudtner, MD, PhD, MPH, David Munson, MD, and Wynne Morrison, MD
The way that we choose how to frame the conversation with parents about halting or continuing such therapy for their children who will not recover has special importance in medicine and in society.
Increased use of emergency departments for primary care puts undue burden on EDs; however, EMTALA obligates EDs to provide care to patients regardless of their ability to pay.
A bioethicist argues that two journal articles about quality of life-adjusted years research oversimplifies the issue and do not take into consideration people's abilities to adapt to disability and disease.
A health economics professor believes more research is needed on quality of life-adjusted years to explore the way we describe health states, the elicitation of patient values, and how to develop methods for obtaining informed general population preferences.
Elly A. Stolk, MSc and Floortje E. van Nooten, MSc
Two medical technology researchers argue that patients' own valuations of their health states may result in devaluation of interventions that can help them.
When evaluating the developments and complications of a marginally viable premature infant, physicians and parents must work together to decide on treatment that is in the infant’s best interest.