Effects of Hospital Ratings on Patient's Decision of Admission for Treatments - Research Proposal Example

Running Head: Research Proposal Research Proposal [Institute’s Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 Research Statement 3 Significance of the Problem 3 Literature Review 4 Methodology & Hypothesis 5 References 6 Introduction Since few decades, ratings and rankings (Hall, 2009) have been enjoying significant importance due to their impact on consumer behavior and decisions, and until few decades ago, this trend was limited to restaurants, food chains, supermarkets, colleges, and media.

However, in recent years, one can observe ratings and rankings of hospitals (Dranove et al, 2003) that has created a new avenue for hospital management to put efforts on, in order to acquire higher ratings that seem to be influencing consumer decisions globally, especially in developed parts of the world. Research Statement In particular, the researcher will put efforts on the below mentioned research statement to achieve aims and objectives of the research: “To identify and analyze the effects of hospital ratings on patient's decision of admission for treatments” Significance of the Problem It is an observation that there has been an evident alteration in processes and procedures of different markets due to significant impact of ratings and rankings.

In particular, when it comes to hospitals, it does not remain limited to commercialization in comparison to other markets but it is more about the quality of healthcare that plays a crucial role in human lives. For this reason, it is anticipation that research on the abovementioned statement will be very helpful in understanding the impact of rating trend and changes that it will brought in different processes of hospitals. In other words, outcomes of this research will enable the researcher in understanding the role and status of hospitals in this commercial era where everything is now about consumer satisfaction.

In addition, it will be very beneficial in recognizing the significance of rankings and ratings in the hospital industry whether it has received the same importance that it is enjoying in other industries. Literature Review Brief analysis of literature (Gaynor, 2006) has indicated that few researchers (Goldschmidt, 1997; n.d., 2007) have carried out studies to assess the influence of ratings of hospitals and healthcare plans on decisions and choices of consumers. However, there has been variance in the outcomes of different studies, one of the major reasons of selecting this topic that will reduce the gap that exists between results of previous studies.

In addition, many studies (Jin & Sorensen, 2005) have found evident response of consumers in case of ratings of healthcare plans; however, it is still unclear whether rankings and ratings do the same with hospitals as well. Moreover, experts (Keeler & Ying, 1996) have identified that when it comes to hospitals, several other factors play a greater role in influencing behavior and decision of the consumers. For instance, researchers (Pope, 2007) have concluded that besides ratings and ranking, location is one of the most imperative factors that play significant role in influencing decisions of consumers regarding getting treatment.

Besides location, studies (Wedig & Tai-Seale, 2002) have indicated that majority of consumers confront limitation of access to particular hospitals due to restriction from their healthcare plans, and often from their physicians and doctors that impact the decisions of consumers or patients in noteworthy manner. On the other hand, few surveys and subjective studies (Beaulieu, 2002) have specified that quality rankings do play some role in influencing decisions of patients regarding selection of a hospital for treatment.

For instance, in the year 2000, Kaiser Family Foundation carried out a survey to assess influence of quality ratings on hospitals’ decision, and it concluded that twelve percent of the participants acknowledged the fact that "ratings or recommendations from a newspaper or magazine would have a lot of influence on their choice of hospital" (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2000). From this, it is evident that hospital rankings have not been successful in influencing a large percent of consumers or patients; however, this literature review has indicated that hospital rankings exist in correlation and association with several other factors, such as quality, access, facilities, cost, etc (Hill, Winfrey, & Rudolph, 1997).

Thus, the proposed research will be an effort to identify several such factors that play a significant role in causing influencing on decisions of patients on the selection of hospital for their treatment. Methodology & Hypothesis The above-discussed literature review has resulted in the following hypothesis, which will be under testing during the proposed research: Null Hypotheses (Ho): Hospital ratings have no effect on patient’s decision of admission for treatments. Alternative Hypothesis (Ha): Hospital ratings have positive effect on patient’s decision of admission for treatments.

In particular, the proposed research will be a quantitative study that will focus on the abovementioned research statement while testing aforementioned hypotheses. For this purpose, the researcher will be distributing questionnaires at ______________________________ that will enable collection of data that will then be under assessment. References Beaulieu, N. D. (2002). "Quality Information and Consumer Health Plan Choices." Journal of Health Economics. Volume 21, Issue 1, pp. 43-63. Dranove, D.

, Kessler, D., McClellan, M., and Satterthwaite, M. (2003). "Is More Information Better? The Effects of Report Cards on Health Care Providers." Journal of Political Economy. Volume 8, pp. 555-588. Gaynor, Martin. (2006). "What Do We Know About Competition and Quality in Health Care Markets?" NBER Working Paper. Volume 12301. Goldschmidt, P. (1997). "Are ‘America's Best Hospitals' America's best?" Journal of the American Medical Association. Volume 278, pp. 474-5. Hall, L. (2009). Taking Charge of your Own Health.

Harvest House Publishers. Hill, C., Winfrey, K., and Rudolph, B. (1997). "Best Hospitals: a Description of the Methodology for the Index of Hospital Quality." Inquiry. Volume 34, pp. 80-90. Jin G., Sorensen, A. (2005). Information and Consumer Choice: The Value of Publicized Health Plan Ratings. Mimeo. Kaiser Family Foundation. (2000). National Survey on Americans as Health Care Consumers: An Update on the Role of Quality Information. KFF Press. Keeler, T. E. and Ying, J. S. (1996). "Hospital Costs and Excess Bed Capacity: A Statistical Analysis.

" Review of Economics and Statistics. Volume 78, pp. 470-481. N. d. (2007). Modern Healthcare. Volume 37. Crain Communications. Pope, D. G. (2007). Essays in Applied Microeconomics. ProQuest. Wedig, G. J. and Tai-Seale, M. (2002). "The Effect of Report Cards on Consumer Choice in the Health Insurance Market." Journal of Health Economics. Volume 21, Issue 6, pp. 1031-1048.