IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/hecopl/v5y2010i03p295-317_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The experience of implementing choice at point of referral: a comparison of the Netherlands and England

Author

Listed:
  • Dixon, Anna
  • Robertson, Ruth
  • Bal, Roland

Abstract

The implementation of choice for patients over where and when they are seen by specialists in hospital outpatient clinics has been supported by electronic referral systems in England and the Netherlands. This paper compares the implementation of ‘Choose and Book’ in England and ‘ZorgDomein’ in a region of the Netherlands. For England the analysis draws on national data and published studies on ‘Choose and Book’, national patient surveys, and qualitative data based on general practitioner (GP) focus groups. For the Netherlands the analysis draws on qualitative data collected during observational study as well as survey data among patients, GPs and medical specialists. We find that despite significant differences in the genesis and design of the policy, similar challenges have been faced. The electronic referral systems have forced changes to the process of care at the interface between primary and secondary care and standardisation between practices. Although these changes have the potential to generate improvements and benefits, for example, convenience, certainty and choice for patients and efficiency gains through for example reduced do not attend rates, repeat consultations and duplicative diagnostic tests; they have also generated problems during implementation including GP resistance. Policy ambitions for patient choice may not be realised if the implementation of the booking system is not carefully designed and evaluated.

Suggested Citation

  • Dixon, Anna & Robertson, Ruth & Bal, Roland, 2010. "The experience of implementing choice at point of referral: a comparison of the Netherlands and England," Health Economics, Policy and Law, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(3), pages 295-317, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:hecopl:v:5:y:2010:i:03:p:295-317_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1744133110000058/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Or, Zeynep & Cases, Chantal & Lisac, Melanie & Vrangbæk, Karsten & Winblad, Ulrika & Bevan, Gwyn, 2010. "Are health problems systemic? Politics of access and choice under Beveridge and Bismarck systems," Health Economics, Policy and Law, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(3), pages 269-293, July.
    2. Chiara Seghieri & Martina Calovi & Francesca Ferrè, 2018. "Proximity and waiting times in choice models for outpatient cardiological visits in Italy," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(8), pages 1-10, August.
    3. Izady, Navid, 2019. "An integrated approach to demand and capacity planning in outpatient clinics," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 279(2), pages 645-656.
    4. Sergey Shishkin & Alexandra Burdyak & Elena Potapchik, 2013. "Patient choice in the post-Semashko health care system," HSE Working papers WP BRP 09/PA/2013, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    5. Greenhalgh, Trisha & Stones, Rob & Swinglehurst, Deborah, 2014. "Choose and Book: A sociological analysis of ‘resistance’ to an expert system," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 210-219.
    6. Victoor, Aafke & Hansen, Johan & van den Akker-van Marle, M. Elske & van den Berg, Bernard & van den Hout, Wilbert B. & de Jong, Judith D., 2014. "Choosing your health insurance package: A method for measuring the public's preferences for changes in the national health insurance plan," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 117(2), pages 257-265.
    7. Stoopendaal, Annemiek & Bal, Roland, 2013. "Conferences, tablecloths and cupboards: How to understand the situatedness of quality improvements in long-term care," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 78-85.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:hecopl:v:5:y:2010:i:03:p:295-317_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/hep .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.