AN OVERVIEW OF THE MAIN POINTS INFLUENCING A CONSUMER'S CHOICE OF MEDICAL FACILITIES IN RUSSIAN AND FOREIGN PRACTICE
Healthcare consumers decide on their treatment and then choose a medical facility for this treatment. Their choice is based on specific criteria, which furthermore are the basis for the rating of these healthcare services and expectations for them at the time of treatment. On which criteria exactly are patients focused and what do the physicians themselves think of these criteria? This is the question that the authors of this article have attempted to address. By using data from previous patient studies and by analyzing the results of the most recent physician survey-questionnaire, a specific list of criteria was found. It is worth noting that there were common threads between the requirements of the patients and the physicians' opinions of their significance. A clear illustration of this comes from data collected by the Federal state budgetary institution «National Medical and Surgical Center named after N. I. Pirogov» of the Ministry of Healthcare of the Russian Federation. Direct communications between doctor and patient was high on the list of important criteria. In the 21st century, the main focus is the patient and his wants and needs. This constitutes a major shift in the whole paradigm of doctor-patient relationship. It is expected that the increased interaction between doctor and patient will result in improved patient outcomes. In many countries research is now being conducted in order to understand the importance of communication and how it influences patient choice. However, in many studies, doctors and patients are studied as if living in separate worlds. All doctor-patient communication studies have assessed patients or doctors separately but not the interpersonal dynamics. Besides that scientists do not interest what the doctor thinks about the reasons for consumers' choice of the medical facility and the specialist for this treatment. The question remains how clearly the doctors understand this. After all, whether they understand why patients come to them and what attracts them so much depends on improving the quality of work of the medical institution.