Health Policy Plan. 2014 Mar 5. [Epub ahead of print]

Setting healthcare priorities in hospitals: a review of empirical studies.

Barasa EW1, Molyneux S, English M, Cleary S.

Author information

• 1KEMRI Centre for Geographic Medicine Research - Coast, and Wellcome Trust Research Programme, P.O. Box 43640, Nairobi 00100, Kenya, Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town, Observatory 7975, Cape Town, South Africa, Centre for Tropical Medicine, Nuffield Department of Medicine Research Building, University of Oxford, Old Road campus, Roosevelt Drive, Headington, Oxford, OX3 7FZ and Nuffield Department of Medicine & Department of Paediatrics, University of Oxford, Old Road Campus, Headington, Oxford OX3 7BN, Oxford, UK.

Abstract

Priority setting research has focused on the macro (national) and micro (bedside) level, leaving the meso (institutional, hospital) level relatively neglected. This is surprising given the key role that hospitals play in the delivery of healthcare services and the large proportion of health systems resources that they absorb. To explore the factors that impact upon priority setting at the hospital level, we conducted a thematic review of empirical studies. A systematic search of PubMed, EBSCOHOST, Econlit databases and Google scholar was supplemented by a search of key websites and a manual search of relevant papers' reference lists. A total of 24 papers were identified from developed and developing countries. We applied a policyanalysis framework to examine and synthesize the findings of the selected papers. Findings suggest that priority setting practice in hospitals was influenced by (1) contextual factors such as decision space, resource availability, financing arrangements, availability and use of information, organizational culture and leadership, (2) priority setting processes that depend on the type of priority setting activity, (3) content factors such as priority setting criteria and (4) actors, their interests and power relations. We observe that there is need for studies to examine these issues and the interplay between them in greater depth and propose a conceptual framework that might be useful in examining priority setting practices in hospitals.