CURRENT EVALUATION PRACTICES INVOLVING RESOURCE ALLOCATION PROCESSES IN CANADIAN HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATIONS: A SURVEY OF SENIOR MANAGERS

Resource allocation is a key function of senior leadership teams within healthcare organizations. Academic support of this function has traditionally focused on constructing tools to make decisions more formalized, and much less attention has been paid to understanding resource allocation as a management process. In particular, evaluation has been a missing aspect. The authors conducted a pan-Canadian survey of senior managers within the healthcare system. This survey included questions related to formal evaluation of their resource allocation processes and outcomes. We use these data to shed some light upon the state of priority-setting practice in Canada at the present time.