Principles for Allocation of Scarce Medical Interventions

The authors evaluated four categories of resource allocation principles (treating people equally, favoring the worst-off, maximizing total benefits, and promoting and rewarding social usefulness). Because they determined that no one principle is comprehensive enough, they suggested combining them into "multiprinciple allocation systems." The authors recommended the "complete lives system—which [prioritizes] younger people who have not yet lived a complete life, and also incorporates prognosis, save the most lives, lottery, and instrumental value principles."