A heuristic for direct consumer participation in primary health care planning

Recent attempts at consumer participation in the health care planning process have proved weak in their ability to responsively account for consumer health welfare. This can be attributed, in large part, to the mechanisms employed for identifying and utilizing the consumer's health care views and preferences. A heuristic planning procedure designed to overcome these problems by directly incorporating consumer preferences is developed. It identifies that (primary) health care delivery system which maximizes total incremental health benefit to a community subject to a prespecified budget constraint. The model assumes a methodology (previously developed by the author) for measuring, in aggregable units, the benefit, B_ip, from some health care facility p as perceived by some consumer i. Application of the procedure and subsequent sensitivity analyses demonstrate its ability to generate valid solutions that are robust to disturbances in the planning system.