Exploring policy-makers' perspectives on disinvestment from ineffective healthcare practices

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: Many existing healthcare interventions diffused before modern evidence-based standards of clinical- and cost-effectiveness. Disinvestment from ineffective or inappropriately applied practices is growing as a priority for international health policy, both for improved quality of care and sustainability of resource allocation. Australian policy stakeholders were canvassed to assess their perspectives on the challenges and the nature of disinvestment. METHODS: Senior health policy stakeholders from Australia were criterion and snow-ball sampled (to identify opinion leaders). Participants were primed with a potential disinvestment case study and took part in individual semistructured..