title: [Involving patients, the insured and the general public in healthcare decision making].
abstract: No doubt, the public should be involved in healthcare decision making, especially when decision makers from politics and self-government agencies are faced with the difficult task of setting priorities. There is a general consensus on the need for a stronger patient centeredness, even in HTA processes, and internationally different ways of public participation are discussed and tested in decision making processes. This paper describes how the public can be involved in different decision situations, and it shows how preference measurement methods are currently being used in an international context to support decision making. It distinguishes between different levels of decision making on health technologies: approval, assessment, pricing, and finally utilization. The range of participation efforts extends from qualitative surveys of patients' needs (Citizen Councils of NICE in the UK) to science-based documentation of quantitative patient preferences, such as in the current pilot projects of the FDA in the US and the EMA at the European level. Possible approaches for the elicitation and documentation of preference structures and trade-offs in relation to alternate health technologies are decision aids, such as multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), that provide the necessary information for weighting and prioritizing decision criteria.
authors.affiliation: Professur Gesundheitsökonomie und Medizinmanagement, Hochschule Neubrandenburg. Electronic address: muehlbacher@hs-nb.de.
authors.forename: Axel C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Mühlbacher
authors.affiliation: Professur Gesundheitsökonomie und Medizinmanagement, Hochschule Neubrandenburg.
authors.forename: Christin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Juhnke
mesh_terms: D002908:Chronic Disease / Q000628:therapy; D003256:Community Participation; D003657:Decision Making; D003661:Decision Support Techniques; D003695:Delivery of Health Care; D018795:Device Approval; D017277:Drug Approval; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D009313:National Health Programs; D010358:Patient Participation; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D018570:Risk Assessment; D013673:Technology Assessment, Biomedical
keywords: Bürgerbeteiligung; Entscheidungen im Gesundheitswesen; Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA); Multikriterielle Entscheidungsanalyse (MCDA); Patient involvement; Patientenbeteiligung; Präferenzmessung; healthcare decision making; preference measurement; public involvement