Health Law 2: Prioritizing Patients and Resource Allocation

The assignment presents a case study where the Chief Financial Officer of a public hospital must allocate limited resources for elective knee replacement surgeries. Given a budget for 200 surgeries while 300 patients need them, the assignment requires the CFO to determine patient prioritization criteria. The solution proposes using the Australian Triage Scale (ATS) to assess patients' urgency and determine waiting times, ensuring an unbiased approach. Ethical principles of fairness, truthfulness, and consistency, as per IOM reports and Australian law, are emphasized. The document justifies the use of triage for efficient resource allocation, highlighting the importance of moral obligations and values to avoid discrimination. References to relevant research support the chosen methodology. This approach ensures equitable treatment and optimizes the allocation of healthcare resources within budgetary constraints.

HEALTH LAW 1
Justice and Allocation of Resources
Students name
Institution

HEALTH LAW 2
Justice and Health Allocation
Daily routines of health services lead to increased ethical issues for medical professionals
due to the limited resources needed for meeting the patient's needs. There is a need to make
choices in the hospital environment based on values and principles, which means they are moral
decisions as they affect individuals, institutions, and the community as a whole. Triaging in the
Australian health sector refers to determining the maximum waiting time for the treatment and
patient assessment using a triage scale. The triage approach is more unbiased and will be more
applicable in this case study.
Due to the financial burden experienced, the ATS tool will be used in determining the
maximum waiting time for the patient. This will give priority to the patients experiencing life-
threatening conditions (Gwynne-Jones et al. 2018, pp.983-987). This tool will help to ensure that
all the patients will be selected in the order of their clinical urgency and later given to the
relevant assessment and treatment areas.
Figure 1: working/categories of a Triage tool (McGuire et al. 2019, p.86).

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The ATS tool will utilize five categories from the first category, which represent an
immediately life-threatening condition to category five that represents a minor condition that can
be treated within two hours. As a Chief Finance Officer, triage assessment will be assigned to
qualified staff in this department to help in making priorities.
Mass casualty events occur naturally in the environment, which in this case may have let
to knee breakdowns. Moreover, in this case, despite the limited financial resources, Triage can be
an adequate criterion to select the patients and also in calculating the waiting time for the
students. According to the IOM letter report, fairness is crucial and that the approach should use
standards that are; recognized by all parties involved, evidence-based and admits to the needs of
the individuals and the selected or affected population (Pratt, and Hyder, 2017, pp. 454-466)
Triage is thus effective method as compared to other approaches. This is also because the method
takes into account the urgency of the need for assessment or treatment.
According to Australian law, the processes involved should be equitable- the approach
should be truthful in planning and making decisions and be consistent across all populations and
individuals without regard to their social, economic status, or ethnic backgrounds, among others.
The Triage is universal and equal to every person. It operates under no bias (Lane, Martin, and
Haines, 2019, pp. 41-56). The rule of law is also presented in the letter report, which means legal
authorities are a necessity to empower and act during a crisis. This also means that the Triage
approach will help in optimizing resource allocation. Triage will give a guarantee of the waiting
time, and also another advantage of using the tool is unbiased.
The health sector should always observe moral obligations and values to avoid
discrimination based on social, economic factors, ethnic backgrounds, or education. The Triage
tool is the right approach to calculating the waiting time of the patients based on the urgency of

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treatment and assessment of the patient. The tool will help us in selecting the number of patients
that will be served based on the finance available.

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References
Gwynne-Jones, D.P., Hutton, L.R., Stout, K.M., and Abbott, J.H., 2018. The joint clinic:
managing excess demand for hip and knee osteoarthritis referrals using a new physiotherapy-led
outpatient service. The Journal of arthroplasty, 33(4), pp.983-987.
Lane, H., Martin, J.M. and Haines, T., 2019. Healthcare Decision Making: Allied Health and
Equity. In Mental Health Policy, Practice, and Service Accessibility in Contemporary
Society (pp. 41-56). IGI Global.
McGuire, F., Vijayasingham, L., Vassall, A., Small, R., Webb, D., Guthrie, T. and Remme, M.,
2019. Financing intersectoral action for health: a systematic review of co-financing
models. Globalization and Health, 15(1), p.86.
Pratt, B. and Hyder, A.A., 2017. Fair resource allocation to Health Research: priority topics for
bioethics scholarship. Bioethics, 31(6), pp.454-466.