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Health and efficiency: Clinical effectiveness dissected

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Abstract

If the exclusive promotion of values inimical to our basic humanity extends to the health care policy arena, we face a defensive, restricted, impersonal and ultimately impoverished health care system. Americans know it already as ‘managed-care’. This is why it is crucial for health policy analysts to make explicit the role of values in policy-making, especially that involving the input of ‘value-neutral’ economics. The nature of any clinical effectiveness policy will be determined by the understanding of cost-effectiveness employed in its design and implementation. Given that cost-effectiveness is nowadays usually defined according to health economists’ criteria, the battle over the meaning of clinical effectiveness is a significant development in health economics’ move to assume control of the NHS.

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Keaney, M., Lorimer, A.R. Health and efficiency: Clinical effectiveness dissected. Health Care Anal 6, 208–215 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02678106

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