Allocative Value

Paper of the Week: 20th February 2020 This week’s blog is brought to you by: Dr Joe McManners Full reference and title from the journal: Paddling against the stream- dealing with the ‘prevention paradox’, link to paper: click here Authors conclusion ACOs faced significant difficulties in integrating social services with medical care. First, the ACOs were frequently “flying blind,” lacking data on both their patients’ social needs and the capabilities of potential community partners. Additionally, partnerships between ACOs and community-based organizations were critical but were only in the early stages of development. Innovation was constrained by ACOs’ difficulties in determining how best to approach return on investment, given shorter funding cycles and longer time horizons to see returns [...]

Paper of the Week: 13th January 2020 This week’s blog is brought to you by: Dr Joe McManners Full reference and title from the journal: Biases distorting priority setting: BjørnHofmann Health Policy, Volume 124, Issue 1. January 2020. Pages 52-60. Link to paper click here Authors conclusion: Despite vast challenges and extensive efforts, the outcomes of practical priority setting are scarcely documented. Why is this so? This is the key question of this study. That is, why are the outcomes of priority setting so poorly documented, e.g. in reducing low-value care, when the principles, regulations, and tools for priority setting are fairly well developed? The author looks briefly at some rational explanations for the discrepancy between theoretical efforts [...]