'University Library System, University of Pittsburgh'
Abstract
The purpose of the essay will be to discuss an ethical resource allocation decision support tool the author of this essay helped design for use by United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health care administrators. This will include discussions of the process of the tool’s purpose and design, related business ethics and management literature, and ways in which the tool was improved through multiple revision cycles based on user feedback and the management literature. As civil servants, VA health care administrators are fiduciaries of public funds and are accountable to the public for their disposition of those funds and other public resources. They are obligated to allocate the limited resources provided to them from tax revenues as effectively and efficiently as possible and in accordance with public wishes. The success of VA in allocating its limited resources also has significant public health relevance. Public health, as broadly defined by the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine, is “what we as a society do collectively to assure the conditions in which people can be healthy.” Given that VA is publicly funded and government-run, its public health actions are our actions as a society. Focusing primarily on a specific but large population, viz., military Veterans and their immediate families, VA engages directly in many various activities that ensure people can be healthy and that help them return to health when they become unhealthy. These activities include a full range of direct health care services, population-level infectious disease management, epidemiological research, and health and wellness promotion
