During the 1990s, the social health insurance schemes of Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium and Israel were significantly reformed by the introduction of freedom of choice (open enrolment) of health insurer. This was introduced alongside a system of risk adjustment to compensate...

Currently, health state values are usually obtained from members of the general public trying to imagine what the state would be like rather than by patients who are actually in the various states of health. Valuations of a health state by patients tend to vary from those of the general...

The automated wayside horn system is designed to replace the train horn as a means of alerting motorists to danger and thus enhancing safety at highway-rail grade crossings. Furthermore, the wayside horn directionality is such that the warning sound is broadcast over a smaller sector than the...

Citizen preferences surrounding desirable health system characteristics should be considered when undertaking health system reform. The objective of this study was to pilot test a discrete-choice instrument designed to elicit preference weights surrounding health system attributes. A...

Introduction: American insurers are designing products to contain healthcare costs by making consumers financially responsible for their choices. Little is known about how consumers will view these new designs. Our objective is to examine consumer preferences for selected benefit designs....

Objective: A comparison of the implications of the application of the principles of equity and efficiency as two desirable but competing attributes of the organ allocation system. Efficiency is defined in economic terms as the standard cost per QALY model and equity considerations are included...

The London Patient Choice Project (LPCP) was established to offer NHS patients more choice over where and when they receive treatment, and to reduce waiting times. The LPCP offered those patients waiting around 6 months for elective procedures a choice of treatment at an alternative NHS or...

The aim of this study was to investigate alternative methods for aggregating public preferences that may then be used to guide priority-setting decisions in healthcare. This involved asking members of the Australian public to assume the role of a healthcare planner and to allocate an additional...