Workshop: patients’ choices in health care in the context of the health care system.

Introduction: In several countries patients are assumed to choose a health care provider and an insurer, both as a worthwhile effort for patients and as an instrument to encourage competition
between providers and insurers. In the end, patient choice is assumed to result in more choice opportunities for patients and more efficient health care of higher quality in general. It needs to be investigated, however, whether the promotion of patient choice indeed is a worthwhile effort for patients, whether they take up their role by actively choosing a health insurer and care providers and whether the goals of more efficient and better quality of care are reached. The workshop
will cover the choices that patients are expected to make in different countries in the context of these countries’ healthcare systems. Objective: The objective of the workshop is to learn about the role of patient choice in health care systems of different countries. The added value of this workshop is that patient choice is discussed in the broader context of the health care systems. In this way, this workshop contributes to sharing knowledge between countries’ policies on patient choice. Consequently, differences between countries in the outcomes and mechanism of patient
choice can be explained. Additionally, this will give insight in evidence based policy and might have implications for policy measures in different countries and different health care systems. Lay-out of the workshop The workshop contains four presentations on patient choice, from three different countries. The first presentation will be from the German perspective. This presentation includes
conceptual remarks, an overview on research on patient choice in Germany and comparative comments on research in other countries. The second and third presentations are from the Dutch perspective. One presentation will shed light on the influence of health insurers on enrolees’ care provider choice and the other presentation about the relationship between patient choice of health care providers (both as an instrument and a goal) and patient experiences. In the fourth presentation the impact of choice reforms for key stakeholders and the current revival and potential broadening of choice policies in Norway will be discussed. The workshop will end with a
discussion on the impact of patient choice on the goals that are supposed to be reached by promoting this in health care systems, namely more choice opportunities for patients and more efficient health care of higher quality.
Key messages
Patient choice is discussed in the broader context of three countries’ health care systems.
Differences in outcomes between countries are discussed and explained. This may have implications for policy measures in different countries and different health care systems.