The interaction of bedside rationing and the fairness of health care systems : physicians’ views

As physicians are confronted with scarcity and with the effects of cost-containment policies on clinical practice, they occupy a unique position from which to observe the impact of priorities set by health care systems. This chapter focuses on results from the Values at the Bedside study pertaining to physicians’ assessment of their health care system’s resource availability, the distribution of these resources, and the fairness of this distribution. In so doing, it explores the interactions between macro-level policy decisions and micro-allocation decisions by providers in the clinical setting