Page 159 - Human Rights

Faculty of Nursing
Adult care Nursing Department

Still, there should be another set of tools to maximize the potential for fair decision-making

processes in this setting.

These two perspectives are not mutually exclusive; some legal arrangements are always necessary

to accomplish regulatory goals.

For example, if responsive regulation is at stake, this is a global approach that considers both

compliance (Kon 2003) and deterrence strategies.

For example, assume that the best outcome is achieved by matching regulatory instruments to
the specifics of the regulated organizations and the circumstances in which the regulation is

carried out (Ayres and Braithwaite 1992), that is, both command-and-control and steer-and-

channel modalities. Then, enforcement through the law is a necessary condition (although

insufficient) for the regulation to succeed. Nonetheless, healthcare regulations have some peculiar

characteristics. The specificity of healthcare regulation comes from a set of drivers that are
particularly stringent in modern societies.

In most contemporary democracies, the equity of healthcare access is considered as a positive

welfare right; any deviation on this principle is regarded as an unacceptable failure of the
regulatory system.

It is also necessary to abide by the accepted quality standards because the wide definition of

health as a general condition of well-being makes excellence in healthcare an ethical imperative.

Then, efficiency in resource allocation is essentially a viability factor that must be considered due
to the high opportunity cost of any decision in this setting.

I suggest that in publicly financed healthcare systems, regulation can be defined as the sustained

and focused control exercised by a public agency over health activities with the goal of balancing

equity and efficiency, thereby complying with specific quality standards (Nunes et al. 2009).

137 Academic Year 2025/2026