Patients preferred shorter waiting times,[40] high satisfaction with pharmacy ratings, quality certificates and extended opening hours.[37] A study by Wellman and Vidican,[39] piloting the addition of medication management services in prescription benefit insurance models, demonstrated that respondents placed the greatest value on pharmacist provision of comprehensive medication management services. Several of the studies also indicated the existence of ‘status-quo’ bias (i.e. tendency to prefer their current service) among patients with respect to
pharmacy choices.[35-37] Four studies examined pharmacist preferences, of which only three elicited preferences with respect to pharmacy services,[41-43] while one was related to preferences for a specific new technology.[44] Grindrod et al.[42] investigated pharmacist preferences for specialised service provision and showed find more that pharmacists preferred to provide medication and disease-management services but did not have significant preferences for screening services. This was contrary to Scott et al.[43] who investigated pharmacist preferences for extended roles in primary care. Significant predictors of pharmacists’ job choices included having an extended pharmacy team, integration with primary and secondary care as well as higher income whereas provision of chronic disease
management and health promotion services was not preferred. Using the latent class model, one study[42] showed the existence of preference heterogeneity in pharmacists’ preferences selleck chemicals with pharmacists falling into three classes, indicating that groups of pharmacists may have different preferences with respect to specialised services provision. Pharmacist preferences were mainly investigated for process-related aspects such as duration of service, type or level of service provision, setting and integration with primary/secondary care and professional service/job-related aspects including job satisfaction, educational requirements and personal income. In the majority of the
studies eliciting Lck preferences for the delivery of specialised pharmacy services (medication or disease management), income was an important attribute, with pharmacists preferring higher incomes.[41-43] Only two studies investigated preferences of both patients and providers for haemophilia therapy.[45, 46] These were also the only studies that included health-outcome related attributes in addition to process-related outcomes. While patients and providers showed substantial consensus for some attributes (e.g. cost), preferences for other attributes were quite different. Patients were more focused on process-related attributes as compared to providers. The relatively few pharmacy DCE studies make it hard to make definitive conclusions about pharmacy services from both the provider and recipient viewpoints. However, a few findings may be highlighted.