Title: Government policy and healthcare management: proposal of a shared decision-making model

Authors: Antonella Petrillo; Fabio De Felice; Carmela Vanzanella; Filippo Crispino; Jennifer Martin; Michael Craven; Stephen P. Morgan; Leandro Pecchia

Addresses: University of Naples 'Parthenope', Isola C4, Centro Direzionale, 80143 Napoli (NA), Italy ' University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, Via G. di Biasio, 43, 03043 Cassino (FR), Italy ' Italian Council of National Researches (CNR), Piazzale Aldo Moro 7, 185 Rome (RM), Italy ' Business Engineering Srl, via Annarumma 22, 83100 – Avellino (AV), Italy ' NIHR MindTech Healthcare Technology Cooperative, The Institute of Mental Health, Jubilee Campus, Nottingham, NG7 2TU, UK ' NIHR MindTech Healthcare Technology Cooperative, The Institute of Mental Health, Jubilee Campus, Nottingham, NG7 2TU, UK; Faculty of Engineering Electrical Systems and Optics, The University of Nottingham, Nottingham, NG7 2TU, UK ' Electrical Systems and Optics Research Division, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK ' School of Engineering, University of Warwick, Warwick, UK

Abstract: As a consequence of the current economic crisis many changes have been introduced to health systems on national levels to reduce expenditure and to introduce more cost-effective methods. Then recent developments in medical technology have led to a shift in the traditional framework of physician-patient responsibility in healthcare decision making. In this context, the health community urges, in any case, decision makers to ensure that all changes introduced are in accordance with health system values. This paper presents a new decision making platform, as a tool to facilitate shared decision making, to improve the quality and transparency of tactical and strategic decisions. This new application, based on analytic quantitative method, is a component of a wider distributed web system under development, which aims to inform the new effective health technologies supporting designers in the user need elicitation and early stage health technology assessments. A case study aiming to elicit the user needs affecting the decision of whether to adopt a new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is also presented.

Keywords: analytical hierarchy process; AHP; government policy; magnetic resonance imaging; MRI; user needs elicitation; decision making; healthcare management: shared decisions; healthcare technology; technology assessment.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMDM.2015.070757

International Journal of Management and Decision Making, 2015 Vol.14 No.3, pp.183 - 204

Received: 31 Dec 2014
Accepted: 23 Feb 2015
Published online: 23 Jul 2015 *

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