Impact of Physicians on Patients Seeking Hospital Services: Information Asymmetry Combines with Shifts in Perceived Quality

Purpose: Physicians have been identified as a pressure group and should be considered to design and implement the system of healthcare provision. This study describes the unique characteristics of the hospital admission system in Palestine. Two situational roles of physicians may influence the patient perceptions of medical care quality: the gate-keeper role of the physician to control admission and the physician’s communication practices to manage medical encounters.
Methodology: This study explores the hospitalization system and the driving forces of the healthcare system in Palestine. When compared to the theory and others’ work, it is reasonable to hypothesize that the applied settings may make the opportunistic influences of the physicians possible, and impact medical care outcomes. Literature review, interviews, and self-administered questionnaire will be included to examine physicians’ attitudes and behaviors.
Findings: The less cohesive system of hospitalization provision, and other geopolitical and socioeconomic factors may distance physicians from the patient best interests. Informal and unorganized health markets may allow physicians taking the advantage of uninformed patients.
Research limitation: The Palestinian context is unique, results may apply to some other developing countries, but cannot be generalized. Other relational behaviors are also important in delivering competent care as the nurses-patients and physicians-nurses communication tasks put forward more investigations.
Practical implications: The study captures the areas that merit more attention for improving the healthcare system and profession settings.
Originality: The physicians’ attitudes towards effective communications have not been studied in Palestine.

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Care Provision. Perceived Quality. Professionalism. Palestine