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Patients’ choice between public and private hospital emergency departments: a cross‐sectional survey
Author(s) -
He Jun,
Hou XiangYu,
Toloo Ghasem Sam,
FitzGerald Gerry
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
emergency medicine australasia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.602
H-Index - 52
eISSN - 1742-6723
pISSN - 1742-6731
DOI - 10.1111/1742-6723.12841
Subject(s) - medicine , cross sectional study , medical emergency , emergency medicine , family medicine , pathology
Objective The aim of this study was to understand what factors influence patients’ choice between public and private hospital ED and the relative weight of those factors among adult patients with private health insurance in Australia. Methods A survey of 280 patients was conducted in four public and private hospitals’ EDs in Brisbane between May and August 2015. The survey included information about respondent's demographics, nature of illness, decision‐making, attitudes and choice. Independent t ‐test and Pearson's χ²‐test were used to identify binary associations, and logistic regression was used to determine what factors influence patients’ choice. Results Patients who agreed that ‘long waiting time is a barrier to access public hospital ED ’ were twice as likely to choose private hospitals (odds ratio [ OR ] 2.172, P = 0.001). Alternatively patients who did not consider that ‘there were long waiting times in public hospital ED ’ were less likely to access private hospitals ( OR 0.200, P = 0.003). More public hospital patients (70.7%) than private hospital patients (56.4%) ( P = 0.015) agreed that ‘out‐of‐pocket payment is a barrier to accessing private hospital ED ’. Patients attending private hospitals rated the quality of service higher than those attending public hospitals ( OR 1.26, P = 0.001). Conclusion Longer waiting times in public EDs is the principal issue considered by patients choosing private EDs and the out‐of‐pocket payment for accessing private EDs is the principal issue considered by public ED patients. The study suggests that addressing the out‐of‐pocket payments will attract more patients with private health insurance to access private EDs .