Objective. Publicly available information on hospital performance is increasing, with the aim to support consumers when choosing a hospital. Besides general hospital information and information on outcomes of care, there is increasing availability of systematically collected information on experiences of other patients. The aim of this study was to assess the influence of previous patients' experiences relative to other information when choosing a hospital for surgical treatment. Methods. Three hundred thirty-seven patient volunteers and 280 healthy volunteers (response rate of 52.4% and 93.3%, respectively) filled out an Internet-based questionnaire that included an adaptive choice-based conjoint analysis. They were asked to select hospital characteristics they would use for future hospital choice, compare hospitals, and choose the overall best hospital. Based on the respondents' choices, the relative importance (RI) of each hospital characteristic for each respondent was estimated using hierarchical Bayes estimation. Results. Information based on previous patients' experience was considered at least as important as information provided by hospitals. "Report card regarding physician's expertise" had the highest RI (16.83 [15.37-18.30]) followed by "waiting time for outpatient clinic appointment" (14.88 [13.42-16.34]) and "waiting time for surgery" (7.95 [7.12-8.78]). Patient and healthy volunteers considered the same hospital attributes to be important, except that patient volunteers assigned greater importance to "positive judgment about physician communication" (7.65 v. 5.80, P < 0.05) and lower importance to "complications" (2.56 v. 4.22, P < 0.05). Conclusion. Consumers consider patient experience-based information at least as important as hospital-based information. They rely most on information regarding physicians' expertise, waiting time, and physicians' communication when choosing a hospital.

Objective: To assess the impact of quality of care and other hospital information on patients' choices between hospitals. Methods: 665 former surgical patients were invited to respond to an Internet-based questionnaire including a choice-based conjoint analysis. Each patient was presented with 12 different comparisons of 2 hospitals, with each hospital characterized by 6 attributes containing 2 levels. Hospital attributes were included if frequently reported by patients as most important for future hospital choices. These included both general hospital information (e.g., atmosphere), information on quality of care (e.g., percentage of patients with "textbook outcome"), and surgery-specific information (e.g., possibility for minimally invasive procedure). Hierarchial Bayes estimation was used to estimate the utilities for each attribute level for each patient. Based on the ranges of these utilities, the relative importance of each hospital attribute was determined for each participant as a measure of the impact on patients' choices. Results: 308 (46.3%) questionnaires were available for analysis. Of the hospital attributes that patients considered, surgery-specific information on average had the highest relative importance (25.7 [23.9-27.5]), regardless of gender, age, and education. Waiting time and hospital atmosphere were considered least important. The attribute concerning the percentage of patients with "textbook outcomes" had the second greatest impact (18.3 [16.9-19.6]), which was similar for patients with different adverse outcome experience. Conclusions: Surgery-specific and quality of care information are more important than general information when patients choose between hospitals.

Objective: To assess whether patients who experience adverse outcomes during hospitalisation or after discharge differ in the information they would use for future choices of a hospital for surgery compared with patients without any adverse outcomes. Design: Cross-sectional questionnaire study, including questions on (1) adverse outcome occurrence during hospitalisation and after discharge, (2) information patients would use for future hospital choice and (3) priority of information. Setting: Three hospitals in the western part of The Netherlands. Study sample All 2122 patients who underwent elective aorta reconstruction (for treatment of aneurysm), cholecystectomy, colon resection, inguinal hernia repair, oesophageal resection or thyroid surgery in the period 2005e2006, of whom 1329 (62.6%) responded. Results: Patients who experienced postdischarge adverse outcomes intend to use more information items to choose a future hospital (on average 1.6 items more). They more often would use the item on information provision during hospitalisation (OR 2.35 (1.37 to 4.03)) and information on various quality-of-care measures, compared with patients without adverse outcomes. Patients who experienced in-hospital adverse outcomes would not use more information items but more often would use the item on mortality after surgery (OR 1.93 (1.27 to 2.94)) and extended hospital stay (OR 1.61 (1.10 to 2.36)). However, when asked for priority of information, previous treatment in that hospital is mentioned as the most important item by most patients (32%), regardless of adverse outcome occurrence, followed by hospital reputation and waiting time. Conclusions: Adverse outcome experience may change the information patients use (on quality of care) to choose a future hospital.

To assess whether patients use information on quality of care when choosing a hospital for surgery compared with more general hospital information. In this cross-sectional study in 3 Dutch hospitals, questionnaires were sent to 2122 patients who underwent 1 of 6 elective surgical procedures in 2005-2006 (aorta reconstruction [for treatment of aneurysm], cholecystectomy, colon resection, inguinal hernia repair, esophageal resection, thyroid surgery). Patients were asked which information they had used to choose this hospital and which information they intended to use if they would need similar surgical treatment in the future. In total, 1329 questionnaires were available for analysis (response rate 62.6%). Most patients indicated having used the hospital's good reputation (69.1%) and friendly hospital atmosphere (63.3%) to choose a hospital. For future choices, most patients intended to use the fact that they were already treated in that hospital (79.3%) and the hospital's good reputation (74.1%). Regarding quality-of-care information, patients preferred a summary measure (% patients with ''textbook outcome'') over separate more detailed measures (52.1% v. 38.0%, χ2 = 291, P < 0.01). For future choices, patients intend to use more information items than in 2005-2006, both in absolute terms (9 v. 4 items, t = 38.3, P < 0.01) as relative to the total number of available items (41.3% [40.1%-42.5%] v. 29.2% [28.1%-30.2%]). Patients intended to use more information for future choices than they used for past choices. For future choices, most patients prefer a summary measure on quality of care over more detailed measures but seem to value that they were already treated in that hospital or a hospital's good reputation even more.