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Does "process utility" exist? A case study of willingness to pay for laparoscopic cholecystectomy
1Health Economics Research Unit, Department of Public Health, Foresterhill, Aberdeen, U.K.
Social Science & Medicine (1982)
|March 1, 1997
Summary
This study explored process utility in healthcare using willingness to pay (WTP) for laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Results did not support that process information increases WTP, but further research is needed.
Area of Science:
- Health economics
- Healthcare evaluation
- Patient decision-making
Background:
- Process utility, incorporating patient preferences for treatment processes, is crucial for comprehensive healthcare evaluation.
- Defining and measuring process versus outcome utility presents significant challenges in empirical research.
- Willingness to pay (WTP) is proposed as a method to empirically detect process utility.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the existence of process utility in healthcare by assessing its impact on patient willingness to pay.
- To examine whether providing information on treatment process, in addition to outcomes, influences patient WTP.
- To explore the association between WTP and stated reasons for preferences, distinguishing between process and outcome factors.
Main Methods:
- A survey was conducted with cholecystectomy patients on a waiting list to assess WTP for laparoscopic versus conventional surgery.
- Respondents were randomly assigned to receive information on outcomes only or on both process and outcomes of the two surgical methods.
- Regression analysis was used to correlate WTP with patient-reported reasons for their preferences, categorized as process or outcome-related.
Main Results:
- The hypothesis that information on the process of care would lead to higher willingness to pay was rejected.
- No significant difference in WTP was observed between groups receiving outcome-only versus process-and-outcome information.
- The study found no empirical support for process utility influencing WTP in this specific surgical context.
Conclusions:
- While this study did not find evidence for process utility influencing WTP for laparoscopic cholecystectomy, definitive conclusions are limited by study design and measurement challenges.
- The findings suggest that process aspects alone may not significantly drive WTP in this patient population.
- Alternative methodologies are recommended for future research to more robustly test for the existence and impact of process utility in healthcare.