Priority Setting Meets Multiple Streams: A Match to Be Further Examined?; Comment on “Introducing New Priority Setting and Resource Allocation Processes in a Canadian Healthcare Organization: A Case Study Analysis Informed by Multiple Streams Theory”

Document Type : Commentary

Author

Health Services Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand

Abstract

With demand for health services continuing to grow as populations age and new technologies emerge to meet health needs, healthcare policy-makers are under constant pressure to set priorities, ie, to make choices about the health services that can and cannot be funded within available resources. In a recent paper, Smith et al apply an influential policy studies framework – Kingdon’s multiple streams approach (MSA) – to explore the factors that explain why one health service delivery organization adopted a formal priority setting framework (in the form of programme budgeting and marginal analysis [PBMA]) to assist it in making priority setting decisions. MSA is a theory of agenda-setting, ie, how it is that different issues do or do not reach a decision-making point. In this paper, I reflect on the use of the MSA framework to explore priority setting processes and how the framework might be applied to similar cases in future.

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References

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History

  • Receive Date: 23 March 2016
  • Revise Date: 09 May 2016
  • Accept Date: 09 May 2016
  • First Publish Date: 01 August 2016

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