CERGAS Seminar "What factors do clinicians value most in selecting physician preference items? Evidence from Italian orthopedic surgeons using two stated preference methods."

Physician preference items (PPIs) are medical technologies for which clinicians have traditionally influenced the choice of product and supplier, often based on personal experience and in contrast with the general trend towards an evidence-based decision-making. Understanding the factors influencing physicians’ preferences for PPIs is of paramount importance for policy makers and hospital managers, who have to guarantee at the same time high quality healthcare and efficiency in the allocation of scarce resources.

The literature so far has collected physicians’ preferences mostly through direct questions using Likert scales, which, however, are susceptible to response biases such as social desirability and acquiescent responding. The risk of using preference results that are possibly affected by this kind of biases is to give incorrect and misleading information to decision-makers about the factors that truly influence clinicians’ choices regarding PPIs.

The objective of this study was to infer the existence of possible response biases by collecting clinicians’ preferences for PPIs, specifically hip and knee prostheses, through two alternative stated preference techniques, namely best-worst scaling and discrete choice experiment, the former making socially desirable and acquiescent answers more evident to the respondent.

During the seminar, I will present and discuss the methodology and the main results of this study, as well as possible policy and research implications.

Speaker: Ludovica Borsoi.

Ludovica Borsoi is Junior Lecturer of Government, Health and Not for Profit Division at SDA Bocconi School of Management. She earned a Master of Science in Economics and Social Sciences from Università Bocconi, and she is currently a PhD Candidate at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. Since 2015, Ludovica has been working in the area of Health Economics & Health Technology Assessment at the Centre for Research on Health and Social Care Management (CERGAS) SDA Bocconi. Her research activities mainly focus on health technology assessment of drugs and medical devices, model-based economic evaluations (cost-effectiveness, cost-utility, cost-of-illness analyses) and the elicitation of patient preferences.

Link zoom: https://unibocconi-it.zoom.us/j/99388754969

For those willing to participate in person, please write to cergas@unibocconi.it before Monday, March 21st.