How can patient access schemes incorporate patient preferences and perspectives in decision-making?

1 Why patient preferences matter

Patient preferences are the subjective evaluations and choices that patients make regarding their health and treatment options. They reflect their personal values, goals, expectations, and experiences. Patient preferences matter because they can influence the effectiveness, adherence, satisfaction, and quality of life of patients using PAS. They can also help identify the unmet needs, preferences, and priorities of different patient groups and subgroups, and inform the design and evaluation of PAS.

2 How to elicit patient preferences

There are various methods and tools to elicit patient preferences, such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, discrete choice experiments, and multi-criteria decision analysis. These methods can capture different aspects of patient preferences, such as their importance, strength, variability, and trade-offs. However, they also have different strengths, limitations, and challenges, such as validity, reliability, feasibility, representativeness, and ethical issues. Therefore, it is important to select the most appropriate and robust method for the specific context and objective of the PAS.

3 How to incorporate patient preferences

Incorporating patient preferences into PAS decision-making can take many forms. Patient preference data can be used as an input or criterion in appraisal and negotiation, as an outcome or measure of performance and impact, or as a feedback or mechanism to monitor and adjust PAS. This data can help inform clinical and economic evidence, measure patient-reported outcomes, satisfaction, or adherence, and adjust PAS over time based on changing needs and expectations.

4 What are the benefits of incorporating patient preferences

Incorporating patient preferences into PAS decision-making can have several benefits, such as enhancing the legitimacy and transparency of decisions by involving patients as stakeholders, improving alignment and relevance to patient needs and values, and increasing the value, efficiency, and sustainability of PAS by optimizing resource allocation and utilization. These advantages can be realized by reflecting patient perspectives and preferences into the decision-making process.

5 What are the challenges of incorporating patient preferences

Incorporating patient preferences into PAS decision-making can also pose several challenges. These include addressing the heterogeneity and diversity of patient preferences, ensuring their consistency and comparability, balancing the trade-offs between patient preferences and other criteria, developing the capacity to collect and analyze patient preference data, and using it in a systematic, rigorous, and ethical way. These challenges must be met to ensure that decisions are made with a full understanding of the complexities at hand.

6 How to overcome the challenges

In order to successfully incorporate patient preferences in PAS decision-making, some strategies can be implemented. These include a patient-centered and participatory approach that engages patients and patient organizations throughout the PAS process, from design to evaluation. Additionally, a flexible and adaptive framework that allows for the integration and adjustment of patient preference data in different stages and scenarios of PAS should be adopted. Furthermore, establishing a collaborative and supportive network that encourages the sharing of best practices, experiences, and learnings among different stakeholders and sectors involved in PAS is key.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?