Using conjoint analysis to assess patients' preferences when visiting emergency departments in Hong Kong

Objectives: To explore factors related to emergency department (ED) attenda nces in Hong Kong, the authors piloted the application of conjoint analysis in eliciting patient preferences regarding ED visits. Methods: The study r ecruited 390 semi-urgent or non-urgent patients from a targeted convenience sample of three large EDs. Respondents were asked to rank eight scenarios structured to explore the relative importances of three key attributes-self -perceived illness severity, waiting time, and consultation fee-that may re sult in an ED visit. Results: Seventy-eight percent of the respondents woul d consider visiting a parallel clinic instead of the ED for semi-urgent and non-urgent conditions. The relative importances attached to illness severi ty, waiting time, and consultation fee were 47.8%, 33.6%, and 18.7%, respec tively. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that Hong Kong patients are re ceptive to the concept of parallel clinics, and illustrated that conjoint a nalysis is a rigorous survey technique for eliciting the views of patients on health care services in the ED setting.