Key Points
• Given limited health care resources also for genetic tests, it needs to be considered how we can meet health needs fairly if we cannot meet them all.
• Frequently, health care decision making involves the explicit or implicit use of principles. The four basic principles for ethical decision making autonomy, non-maleficience, beneficience and justice provide an example of an elaborated bioethical framework by Beauchamp and Childress.
• The qualitative use of such principles for allocating health resources within genetic testing is a fruitful starting point, but it should be complemented by health economic techniques and procedural fairness in a pragmatic manner.
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Rogowski, W., Carlsson, P., Kristoffersson, U. (2010). The Use of Principles in Allocating Scarce Health Care Resources for Genetic Tests. In: Kristoffersson, U., Schmidtke, J., Cassiman, J. (eds) Quality Issues in Clinical Genetic Services. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3919-4_18
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