International Journal of Health Policy and Management

International Journal of Health Policy and Management

Beyond the Black Box Approach to Ethics!; Comment on “Expanded HTA: Enhancing Fairness and Legitimacy”

Document Type : Commentary

Authors
Lars Sandman 1, 2
Erik Gustavsson 3
1 National Centre for Priority Setting in Health-Care, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden
2 University of Borås, Borås, Sweden
3 Division of Arts and Humanities, Department of Culture and Communication, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden
10.15171/ijhpm.2016.43
Abstract
In the editorial published in this journal, Daniels and colleagues argue that his and Sabin’s accountability for reasonableness (A4R) framework should be used to handle ethical issues in the health technology assessment (HTA)-process, especially concerning fairness. In contrast to this suggestion, it is argued that such an approach risks suffering from the irrrelevance or insufficiency they warn against. This is for a number of reasons: lack of comprehensiveness, lack of guidance for how to assess ethical issues within the “black box” of A4R as to issues covered, competence and legitimate arguments and finally seemingly accepting consensus as the final verdict on ethical issues. We argue that the HTA community is already in a position to move beyond this black box approach.
Keywords
Health Technology Assessment (HTA)
Accountability for Reasonableness (A4R)
Ethics
Ethical
Competence
Ethical Analysis
Subjects
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  • Received Date 14 March 2016
  • Revised Date 20 April 2016
  • Accepted Date 16 April 2016
  • First Published Date 01 June 2016
  • Published Date 01 June 2016