Is EBP a surrogate for cost containment at the expense of quality of care?
There is certainly a lot of concern about how EBP is a covert way of introducing cost containment into the health care system. One postmodern critic of EBP argues that it “is driven by the economic imperatives of the healthcare system.” (Winch 2002b) It is certainly debatable whether EBP encourages cost reduction at the expense of quality health care, but if this is happening, this clearly is an abuse of the EBP methodology. Some fear that evidence based medicine will be hijacked by purchasers and managers to cut the costs of health care. This would not only be a misuse of evidence based medicine but suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of its financial consequences. Doctors practising evidence based medicine will identify and apply the most efficacious interventions to maximise the quality and quantity of life for individual patients; this may raise rather than lower the cost of their care. (Sackett 1996) Deconstructing EBP using EBP. The post-modern criticisms that EBP excludes ob
Related Questions
- How would a public health system deal with cost containment issues, quality of care issues and potential fraudulent billing of health care providers?
- What process did the Cost Containment Committee use to determine the FY2010 recommendations?
- How can employers and consumers leverage competition to lower cost and improve quality?
