The Dutch Citizen's Understanding and Perception of the Actors Involved in the Netherlands' COVID-19 Pandemic Response: A Focus Group Study During the First Pandemic Wave.

INTRODUCTION: The COVID-19 pandemic was a public health emergency (PHE) of unprecedented magnitude and impact. It provided the possibility to investigate the Dutch citizens' understanding and perception of the actors involved in the Dutch pandemic response as a PHE unfolded. METHODS: Three focus groups (FGs) were held with 16 Dutch citizens in June 2020. Citizens were recruited using the Dutch Health Care Consumer Panel. During the FGs, participants were asked to fill in a table with actors they thought were involved in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic. They also received information on actors involved in Dutch outbreak responses. Then, the actors named and omitted by the participants were discussed. RESULTS: An analysis of the FGs suggests that the Dutch citizens participating in the study were not fully aware of the scope of actors involved in the Dutch COVID-19 pandemic response. Some participants would have appreciated more information on the actors involved. This would help them have an informed opinion of the actors involved in the decision-making process, and accept non-pharmaceutical interventions implemented. Lastly, most participants recognised that they played a role in limiting the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, very few spontaneously mentioned themselves as actors within the COVID-19 pandemic response. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the Dutch citizens participating in this study's FG did not have a complete understanding of the scope of actors involved in the Dutch COVID-19 pandemic response, or the potential role of the citizen. Future research can build on these results to explore the citizen's perception of their role during PHEs of another origin, as well as other geographical and historical contexts. PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION: The public participated in the focus groups and received a non-expert report summarising the outcomes of the focus groups.

Citizens' perspectives on relocating care: a scoping review.

BACKGROUND: Healthcare systems around the world are facing large challenges. There are increasing demands and costs while at the same time a diminishing health workforce. Without reform, healthcare systems are unsustainable. Relocating care, for example, from hospitals to sites closer to patients' homes, is expected to make a key contribution to keeping healthcare sustainable. Given the significant impact of this initiative on citizens, we conducted a scoping review to provide insight into the factors that influence citizens' attitudes towards relocating care. METHOD: A scoping review was conducted. The search was performed in the following databases: Pubmed, Embase, Cinahl, and Scopus. Articles had to include relocating healthcare and citizens' perspectives on this topic and the articles had to be about a European country with a strong primary care system. After applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 70 articles remained. RESULTS: Factors positively influencing citizens' attitudes towards relocating care included: convenience, familiarity, accessibility, patients having more control over their disease, and privacy. Factors influencing negative attitudes included: concerns about the quality of care, familiarity, the lack of physical examination, contact with others, convenience, and privacy. Furthermore, in general, most citizens preferred to relocate care in the studies we found, especially from the hospital to care provided at home. CONCLUSION: Several factors influencing the attitude of citizens towards relocating care were found. These factors are very important when determining citizens' preferences for the location of their healthcare. The majority of studies in this review reported that citizens are in favour of relocating care. In general citizens' perspectives on relocating care are very often missing in articles. It was significant that very few studies on relocation from the hospital to the general practitioner were identified.

Discussing patients' insurance and out-of-pocket expenses during GPs' consultations.

BACKGROUND: Generally, a significant portion of healthcare spending consists of out-of-pocket (OOP) expenses. Patients indicate that, in practice, there are often some OOP expenses, incurred when they receive medical care, which are unexpected for them and should have been taken into account when deciding on a course of action. Patients are often reliant on their GP and may, therefore, expect their GP to provide them with information about the costs of treatment options, taking into consideration their individual insurance plan. This also applies to the Netherlands, where OOP expenses increased rapidly over the years. In the current study, we observed the degree to which matters around patients' insurance and OOP expenses are discussed in the Netherlands, using video recordings of consultations between patients and GPs. METHODS: Video recordings were collected from patient-GP consultations in 2015-2016. In 2015, 20 GPs and 392 patients from the eastern part of the Netherlands participated. In 2016, another eight GPs and 102 patients participated, spread throughout the Netherlands. The consultations were coded by three observers using an observation protocol. We achieved an almost perfect inter-rater agreement (Kappa = .82). RESULTS: In total, 475 consultations were analysed. In 9.5% of all the consultations, issues concerning patients' health insurance and OOP expenses were discussed. The reimbursement of the cost of medication was discussed most often and patients' current insurance and co-payments least often. In some consultations, the GP brought up the subject, while in others, the patient initiated the discussion. CONCLUSIONS: While GPs may often be in the position to provide patients with information about treatment alternatives, few patients discuss the financial effects of their referral or prescription with their GP. This result complies with existing literature. Policy makers, GPs and insurers should think about how GPs and patients can be facilitated when considering the OOP expenses of treatment. There are several factors why this study, analysing video recordings of routine GP consultations in the Netherlands, is particularly relevant: Dutch GPs play a gatekeeper function; OOP expenses have increased relatively swiftly; and patients have both the right to decide on their treatment, and to choose a provider.

Who is responsible for providing care? Investigating the role of care tasks and past experiences in a cross-sectional survey in the Netherlands.

BACKGROUND: Many countries face substitution from formal to informal care. It is essential that a sufficient number of caregivers, such as family, friends or neighbors, are willing and able to lend care to address the needs of ill or elderly persons. We investigated whether the general public, who might become caregivers in the future, and current informal caregivers align with the shift to more informal caregiving. METHODS: We studied the views on the responsibility for care of the general public versus the government, and whether these views differed among groups with diverse past experiences with care in terms of own health problems or previous caregiving activities. Data (n = 1097) was collected among the Dutch Health Care Consumer Panel with a survey in October 2015. Multivariate analyses of the views on responsibility for care in general and for different types of care were performed using (i) health, (ii) informal care, and (iii) general background characteristics, among a sample of the general public and among a subgroup of current caregivers. RESULTS: The majority (67%) of the respondents would be willing to provide informal care in the future, when necessary. Respondents were more willing to provide support tasks than personal or nursing care activities. Among current caregivers, views on responsibility for care were associated with their past experience. Experiencing less burden of caregiving was associated with perceiving the general public as more responsible for personal or nursing care. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study show that substitution from formal to informal care is more in line with public views when support activities are concerned than personal or nursing care. In addition, burdened caregivers also consider the government more responsible for personal or nursing care. When handing over care tasks to the public domain a critical view is needed on which care tasks are most appropriate for this.

Citizens' perspectives on relocating healthcare.

BACKGROUND: Healthcare systems around the globe are facing challenges. There are increasing demands and costs at the same time as a diminishing health workforce. Without change, healthcare will become unsustainable. The Dutch government is searching for solutions, one of which is relocating healthcare. Relocating healthcare from expensive institutions to sites closer to patients' homes is an important part of this. This relocation is expected to reduce costs and lessen shortages of personnel. However, although citizens have an important stake in this, little is known about how they think about this topic. This research aims at investigating citizens' perspectives on relocating care. METHODS: In December 2021, three open-ended questions were sent to 1,500 members of Nivel's Dutch Healthcare Consumer Panel, 796 respondents responded. In addition, two citizen platforms were organised in March and April 2022. A total of 23 citizens participated. RESULTS: Our results indicated that the following aspects are important for citizens in healthcare delivery: being treated by someone with expertise in the area of their need, familiarity with the healthcare provider and the treatment of less complex care close to home. When certain conditions are met, citizens prefer treatment for less complex care from their general practitioner rather than in a hospital. The most important condition is that the general practitioner has the right expertise regarding their health question. The willingness to relocate care from the general practitioner to other healthcare providers or to self-care is also present. One of the problems, however, is that citizens often do not know to which healthcare provider they should go or what they should do to increase self-care. CONCLUSION: From a citizens' perspective, relocating care is an acceptable solution for keeping healthcare sustainable in the future, provided that certain conditions are met.

General practitioners' perspectives on relocating care: a Dutch interview study.

BACKGROUND: Healthcare systems around the world are facing significant challenges because higher costs and an increase in demand for care has not been matched by a corresponding growth in the health workforce. Without reform, healthcare systems are unsustainable. Relocating care, such as from hospitals to general practices, is expected to make a key contribution to ensuring healthcare remains sustainable. Relocating care has a significant impact upon general practitioners (GPs). Therefore, we investigated which care, according to GPs, could be relocated and under which conditions. METHOD: GPs were recruited through Nivel's GPs network on eHealth and innovation, located in the Netherlands. One exploratory focus group and 12 in-depth interviews were conducted. Interview transcripts were analyzed using the qualitative research principles of thematic analysis. RESULTS: According to the participants, some diagnostic and follow-up care could be relocated from hospitals to GPs once certain prerequisites are fulfilled. An important condition of relocating care from the hospital to the GP is that GPs have sufficient time to take over these tasks. The types of care that can be relocated from the GP to other settings are those questions where the medical knowledge of the GP can offer nothing extra or where problems in navigating the health system cause patients to either turn to, or stay with, their GP. CONCLUSION: Care should first be relocated from the GP to other settings before attempting to organize the relocation of care from the hospital to the GP. When this, and other conditions are met, some diagnostic and follow-up care can be relocated from the hospital to the GP.

Practice variation in home care nursing: mapping potential explanations through a scoping review of the literature.

Needs assessment is the starting point of good home care as it determines which care is necessary, based on the needs of patients, their personal situation, and social context. There are indications that practice variation in needs assessment exists among home care nurses. However, little is known about potential explanations for this variation. Therefore, we explored potential explanations for practice variation in other areas and examined whether these explanations can be applied to explain variation in needs assessment in home care nursing. We conducted a scoping review of the literature on practice variation in (1) needs assessment in home care nursing, (2) home care nursing in general, and (3) medical care in general, with searches in PubMed and CINAHL. We assessed over 6,000 references. Ultimately, 386 studies were included. Explanations for practice variation were grouped into micro, meso and macro level. This scoping review provided insight into a wide variety of variables that might play a role in explaining practice variation in (needs assessment in) home care nursing, such as availability of guidelines, organisational culture, team norms, resources, and preferences of patients. However, the small literature on needs assessment by home care nurses devoted more attention to patients and their social context, compared to the literature on practice variation in general. We discuss how and to what extent these variables could relate to practice variation in (needs assessment in) home care nursing. Future research should empirically examine the role of these variables in explaining the observed practice variation.

Differences in characteristics between people with tinnitus that seek help and that do not.

Knowledge on characteristics of people that seek help for tinnitus is scarce. The primary objective of this study was to describe differences in characteristics between people with tinnitus that seek help compared to those who do not seek help. Next, we described differences in characteristics between those with and without tinnitus. In this cross-sectional study, we sent a questionnaire on characteristics in different domains; demographic, tinnitus-specific, general- and psychological health, auditory and noise- and substance behaviour. We assessed if participants had sought help or planned to seek help for tinnitus. Tinnitus distress was defined with the Tinnitus Functional Index. Differences between groups (help seeking: yes/no, tinnitus: yes/no) were described. 932 people took part in our survey. Two hundred and sixteen participants were defined as having tinnitus (23.2%). Seventy-three of those sought or planned to seek help. A constant tinnitus pattern, a varying tinnitus loudness, and hearing loss, were described more frequently in help seekers. Help seekers reported higher TFI scores. Differences between help seekers and people not seeking help were mainly identified in tinnitus- and audiological characteristics. These outcomes might function as a foundation to explore the heterogeneity in tinnitus patients.

An assessment of the Dutch experience with health insurers acting as healthcare advisors.

INTRODUCTION: With managed competition, selective contracting and the appointing of preferred providers are important instruments for health insurers to improve their bargaining position in the healthcare purchasing market. Insurers can offer enrollees extra services, such as advice about their healthcare, to attract them, ensure that they remain loyal, and to channel them to preferred providers. We investigate which advice services insurers in the Dutch system of managed competition offer enrollees, how they inform them about services, and if enrollees use and appreciate them. MATERIALS AND METHODS: From November to December 2017, two researchers independently analyzed the websites of all health insurers in the Netherlands. We also conducted a questionnaire study among 1,500 members (response 44.5%, N = 668) of the Nivel Dutch Health Care Consumer Panel. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: All insurers offer one or more services. Most enrollees do not know if their insurer offers advice (67-87% per service). Twelve per cent (N = 76) of the enrollees indicate that they ever made use of a service, mostly regarding the choice of provider (N = 42). Respondents who used healthcare advice were satisfied with it. Of all enrollees, 41% indicate that they would probably/certainly, contact their insurer for advice and 37% would appreciate it if their insurer approached them. Among enrollees, 40% indicated the potential advice has some or a major influence on their choice of insurer. CONCLUSIONS: While all insurers offer at least one service, enrollees generally are unaware of them. Only a minority ever made use of such a service. However, a reasonable proportion do appreciate their insurers' advice services and indicate that they would like to have contact with their insurer if they need care. Insurers do not appear to make the best use of the potential for giving healthcare advice and need to think about ways to increase coverage of those services.

Complaint handling in healthcare: expectation gaps between physicians and the public; results of a survey study.

BACKGROUND: Patients who submit complaints about the healthcare they have received are often dissatisfied with the response to their complaints. This is usually attributed to the failure of physicians to respond adequately to what complainants want, e.g. an apology or an explanation. However, expectations of complaint handling among the public may colour how they evaluate the way their own complaint is handled. This descriptive study assesses expectations of complaint handling in healthcare among the public and physicians. Negative public expectations and the gap between these expectations and those of physicians may explain patients' dissatisfaction with complaints procedures. METHODS: We held two surveys; one among physicians, using a panel of 3366 physicians (response rate 57 %, containing all kinds of physicians like GP's, medical specialist and physicians working in a nursing home) and one among the public, using the Dutch Healthcare Consumer Panel (n = 1422, response rate 68 %). We asked both panels identical questions about their expectations of how complaints are handled in healthcare. Differences in expectation scores between the public and the physicians were tested using non-parametric tests. RESULTS: The public have negative expectations about how complaints are handled. Physician's expectations are far more positive, demonstrating large expectation gaps between physicians and the public. CONCLUSIONS: The large expectation gap between the public and physicians means that when they meet because of complaint, they are likely to start off with opposite expectations of the situation. This is no favourable condition for a positive outcome of a complaints procedure. The negative public preconceptions about the way their complaint will be handled will prove hard to change during the process of complaints handling. People tend to see what they thought would happen, almost inevitably leading to a negative judgement about how their complaint was handled.

Where to buy OTC medications? A cross-sectional survey investigating consumers' confidence in over-the-counter (OTC) skills and their attitudes towards the availability of OTC painkillers.

OBJECTIVE: To examine consumers' confidence in their own, and also in other people's, over-the-counter (OTC) skills and to describe their attitude towards the availability of OTC painkillers. Moreover we examined the association between confidence in OTC skills and attitudes. DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey. Mixed methods (postal and electronic) self-administered questionnaire. PARTICIPANTS: Members of the Dutch Health Care Consumer Panel. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Consumers' confidence in their own, and in other people's, OTC skills was examined. Confidence was measured by three questions regarding obtaining information on, choosing and using OTC medication. Consumers' attitudes towards availability were assessed using six safety profiles, by asking which channel consumers prefer for each profile. RESULTS: The response rate was 68% (n=972). Consumers feel confident about their own OTC skills (mean 3.74; 95% CI 3.69 to 3.79, on a 5-point Likert scale), but have less confidence in OTC skills of others (mean 2.92; 95% CI 2.88 to 2.96). Consumers are conservative in their attitudes towards the availability of OTC painkillers. Most consumers prefer painkillers to be available exclusively in pharmacies (41-71% per profile indicated pharmacy only). Moreover, there is an association between confidence in OTC skills and attitudes (p=0.005; ß=-0.114). Consumers who are more confident about their own OTC skills prefer OTC painkillers to be more generally available. CONCLUSIONS: Consumers feel confident about their own OTC skills. However, they would prefer painkillers with safety profiles resembling those currently available OTC, to be available as OTC in pharmacies exclusively. Consumers' confidence in the OTC skills of others is more consistent with their attitudes towards availability of OTC painkillers. Until consumers themselves realise that they are also one of the others, they may overestimate their own OTC skills, which may entail health risks.