In other words, devoting resources to the most critical services and doing so in a cost-effective way. These concepts can seem at times to be in direct opposition to the idea of equity.  A good example of this tension between equity and efficiency can be seen in Oregon in the 1990s when their Medicaid system decided to prioritize health interventions based on their DALYs and what services were most cost efficient.  This ground-breaking system was based on the idea of allocative efficiency.