[Medical Necessity: A Notoriously Fuzzy and Therefore Dispensable Concept?] / Medizinische Notwendigkeit: Ein entbehrlicher, da notorisch unscharfer Begriff?

The concept of a 'medical necessity' (medN) of interventions is used as a dichotomous attribute with steering and orientating function in various contexts without, however, being precisely defined. We see this lack as a virtue if medN is understood as the dynamic result of transparent, trustworthy, and coherent deliberative procedures on both facts and norms. We suggest using the medN concept relative to health care systems, but independent of economic aspects.

[Medical Methods: What Makes them Necessary? Part I: Medical Methods, medical Necessity and its Main Criteria]. / Medizinische Behandlungsmethoden: Was macht sie medizinisch notwendig? Teil I: Medizinische Methoden, medizinische Notwendigkeit und ihre Hauptkriterien.

OBJECTIVES: "Medical necessity" (MedN) is a fuzzy term. Our project aims at concretising the concept between medical ethics, social law, and social medicine to support health care regulation, primarily within Germany's statutory health insurance system. In a previous publication we identified MedN as a tripartite predicate: A specific clinical condition requires a specific medical intervention to reach a specific medical goal. Our two-part text searches for and discusses criteria to classify medical methods as generally medically necessary (medn), provided a non-trivial clinical condition and a relevant, legitimate, and reachable goal actually exist. In this paper we present the first part of our results. METHODS: Based on an extensive ethical, sociolegal and sociomedical body of literature, and starting with an non-controversial case vignette (thrombolysis in acute stroke), we generally followed a critical reconstructive approach. First we defined the term "medical method". In several interdisciplinary rounds, we then collected and discussed criteria from three sources: methods to develop clinical practice guidelines as compendia of indication rules, the National Model of Prioritisation in Swedish Health Care, and the HTA Core Model of the European Network for Health Technology Assessment as an instrument of political counselling. RESULTS: We identified general clinical efficacy and benefit as the 2 main "medical" criteria of MedN. As a third - epistemic - criterion, the corresponding bodies of evidence are always to be considered. Since clinical and prioritising guidelines grade their recommendations, the question arises whether MedN should be conceptualised as a dichotomous or finer graded predicate. In accord with German social law we advocate for the binary form. Further discussions focused on multifactorial MedN-configurations, the range of the term, and the variability of evidence requirements. CONCLUSIONS: No matter how the content of MedN is conceptualised, it seems impossible to include its criteria in an algorithm. So deliberative effort is indispensable at any stage of developing a programme to classify medical methods as medically necessary.

[Medical Methods: What Makes them Medically Necessary? Part II: Further Criteria, Overuse, Moving Thresholds, and Grey Zones]. / Medizinische Behandlungsmethoden: Was macht sie medizinisch notwendig? Teil II: Weitere Kriterien, Übermaßverbot, wandernde Grenzen und Grauzonen.

OBJECTIVES: "Medical necessity" (MedN) is a fuzzy term. Our project aims at concretising the concept between medical ethics, social law, and social medicine to support health care regulation, primarily within Germany's statutory health insurance system. In Part I, we identified efficacy, (net)benefit, and the corresponding bodies of evidence as obligatory criteria of MedN. This is the second part suggesting and discussing further criteria. METHODS: See Part I RESULTS: (Part II): As further MedN-criteria we critically assessed a method's effectiveness and acceptance in routine care, its potential beneficiaries, theoretical fundament, cost, and being without alternative as well as patients' self-responsibility, cooperation, and preferences. Since MedN has both lower and upper bounds, we had to consider certain cases of mis- and overuse, due for instance to "indication creep" or "disease mongering". CONCLUSIONS: The additional criteria neither establish MedN (when met singly or together) nor exclude it (when not met). If MedN is rejected in view of the 3 obligatory criteria then further information does not overturn the verdict. If a method is already assessed as being medn then further criteria do not make it "more or less necessary". Though we advocated for a binary MedN-concept (Part I) we are nonetheless convinced that not all medical methods deemed medn are equally medically relevant. Respective differences within the range of MedN could be assessed by techniques to prioritise medical conditions, methods, and aims.

The argument from potentiality in the embryo protection debate: finally "depotentialized"?

Debates on the moral status of human embryos have been highly and continuously controversial. For many, these controversies have turned into a fruitless scholastical endeavor. However, recent developments and insights in cellular biology have cast further doubt on one of the core points of dissent: the argument from potentiality. In this article we want to show in a nonscholastical way why this argument cannot possibly survive. Getting once more into the intricacies of status debates is a must in our eyes. Not merely intellectual coherence but the standing and self-understanding of current stem cell research might profit from finally taking leave of the argument from potentiality.

Advance (Meta-) Directives for Patients with Dementia who Appear Content: Learning from a Nationwide Survey.

OBJECTIVES: Whether health care professionals should respect a properly executed advance directive (AD) refusing life support in late-stage dementia even if the patient seems contented, is an ethically contested issue. We undertook a nationwide survey to assess this problem and to test a practical solution. DESIGN: Nationwide survey using a questionnaire among 4 stakeholder groups. SETTING: Germany. PARTICIPANTS: Adult Germans (n = 735), among them: dementia-experienced physicians (n = 161), dementia-experienced nurses (n = 191), next of kin (n = 197), and dementia-inexperienced adults (n = 186). MEASUREMENTS: Participants were asked about their attitudes on medical decision-making in a vignette case of treatable pneumonia, for their agreement or disagreement on standard ethical arguments in this debate, and for their views on modified versions of the case. One such modification was an explicit anticipation of the conflict in question by the patients themselves. RESULTS: Of our 735 eligible respondents, 25% were unwilling to follow the patient's AD. Standard arguments for and against respecting the directive were endorsed to different degrees. Respondents' unwillingness to follow the directive was significantly decreased (to 16.3%, P < .001), if the advance refusal of pneumonia treatment explicitly indicated that it applied to a patient who appears content in his demented state. Only 8.7% of respondents would disregard an advance refusal of tube feeding. CONCLUSIONS: Persons executing ADs forbidding life support in late-stage dementia run some risk that these will not be followed if they later appear "happy" in their dementia. It seems ethically and practically advisable to incorporate an explicit meta-directive for this conflict.