Choice Matters: How Healthcare Consumers Make Decisions (and Why Clinicians and Managers Should Care)

by Gordon Moore, John A. Quelch, Emily Boudreau

Overview

The direct-to-consumer business model has transformed how people seek out goods and services from music to mortgages. So what happens now that the revolution has come for healthcare?

While consumers have begun to insist on healthcare that is as convenient and personalized as nearly every other good or service they purchase, most healthcare provider organizations, physicians, and insurance companies remain woefully unprepared to meet this demand.

Choice Matters is the healthcare sector's guide to understanding and delivering the brand of consumer-centered care that is an imperative for the Zocdoc age. Drawing on the authors' diverse backgrounds in medicine, business, and public policy, this practically-oriented resource offers an on-the-ground introduction for clinicians and managers to better understand:

• The differences between healthcare and other consumer-driven markets
· What factors are most important for consumers in seeking care providers
· How consumers make decisions about healthcare
· The system-wide effects of increased consumer choice in healthcare
· The important distinction between patients and consumers

By celebrating the possibilities inherent to consumer-centered healthcare, Choice Matters offers a refreshing, empirically informed take on how healthcare in the United States can flourish, not wither, in the new economy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190886134
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	07/18/2018
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Gordon Moore, MD, MPH, trained at the Massachusetts General Hospital and practiced for 40 years as a primary care internist at Harvard Community Health Plan and Atrius Health in Boston. He was one of the founders and subsequently Medical Director and Chief Operating Officer at the health plan, later becoming Director of Teaching Programs. As a professor at Harvard Medical School, he designed and implemented the New Pathway curriculum and directed the National Program Office of Partnerships for Quality Education, an initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

John A. Quelch, DBA, is the Miller University Professor and Vice Provost at the University of Miami. He is also Dean of Miami Business School. He was formerly the Charles Edward Wilson Professor of Business Administration and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Harvard University.

Emily Boudreau is a PhD student in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Yale University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Table of Contents

Section 1 Introduction

1. Introducing Choice

Section 2 Consumer Choice in the Healthcare System

2. Is Healthcare Special?
3. Conditions for Creating a Consumer Market

Section 3 How Consumers Choose

4. The Decision-Making Process
5. The Six E's of Consumer Decision-Making

Section 4 Responding to Consumer Choice
6. Consumer Segmentation Strategies
7. Making a Consumer Choice 'System' Work

About the Authors

Index

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Natasha A Patterson, MPH (The College of New Jersey)
Description: This is a guide to understanding and delivering consumer-centered healthcare.
Purpose: The purpose is to explain the characteristics of consumer choice, provide examples of what drives patient or consumer choice and how it impacts the healthcare system, and describe how the current healthcare system impacts consumer choice.
Audience: As stated in the preface, the intended audience is "managers, clinical leaders, and policy makers," but the authors mention how patients and other frontline staff may find the information helpful. However, some patients may not understand the content.
Features: Case scenarios are used throughout the book. Not every chapter includes one. However, the authors refer to them when making connections and explaining concepts. The authors believe that consumer choice and responsibility are good for patients and for healthcare. They acknowledge that the US healthcare system is challenged to provide quality care that is affordable and accessible. According to the authors, providers are not prepared for the changes and shift to consumer driven care. The authors take a business approach to examining patient healthcare decisions, using terms such as "consumer," "goods," and "services."
Assessment: This book omits several models for decision-making in health and healthcare. The consumer decision making process, which has foundations in business, is described and used throughout the book, using terms such as "consumer," "goods," and "services." There are shared decision making models that describe the ways in which patients and providers share in the process. Shared Decision Making in Health Care: Achieving Evidence-Based Patient Choice, 3rd edition, Elwyn (Oxford University Press, 2016), is a more comprehensive look at the decision making process for both patients and providers that includes case study implementation, with more contributors to provide insights from various sources, perspectives, and expertise. Handbook of Health Decision Science, Diefenbach et al. (Springer, 2016), describes different models and includes information on why and how patients tend to make decisions contrary to their own interests.

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