@article{Vuong_2016, title={Empirical probabilities of (non)optimal healthcare choice conditional on socio-economic status and time consumption}, volume={28}, url={http://www.iapsmupuk.org/journal/index.php/IJCH/article/view/689}, abstractNote={<p><strong>Background:</strong> Patients need healthcare information for making decisions in choosing health service provider, but data sufficiency and quality are major obstacles. Non-optimal decisions are common. The problem persists even with the growing power of the Internet and ICT-based facilities. Asymmetric information exacerbates the economic inequality, worsening community health. <strong>Aims & Objectives</strong>: The study reports results on existence of empirical relations between such factor as socioeconomic status, consumption of time and outcome of healthcare provider choice by Vietnamese patients. <strong>Material & Methods</strong>: Cross-section data from a patient community survey spanning >30 hospitals in Hanoi, during 2015 Q4-2016 Q1. Study sample contains 1459 observations. Main method used is baseline category logits regression. <strong>Results:</strong> Empirical relations among the above factors are confirmed. The rich possess advantages over the poor, with a >63% probability of making an optimal choice. But two groups are not different with respect to wrong choice, with probabilities of making wrong choice for high- and low-SES patients, spending significant time for seeking information, being 13.6% and 15.1% respectively. <strong>Conclusion</strong>: a) Even for the rich with significant information the chance of choosing right healthcare provider is relatively low, 51%; b) Quality of information or information processing by healthcare consumers shows some problem.</p>}, number={3}, journal={Indian Journal of Community Health}, author={Vuong, Quan- Hoang}, year={2016}, month={Sep.}, pages={286–290} }