Medicine and user involvement within European healthcare: A typology for European comparative research

摘要

User involvement is encouraged within the European Union (EU) within healthcare, most commonly in the form of patient choice. This has recently been further extended in relation to cross-border hospital care (1). The nature of user involvement, however, extends beyond the role of consumer choice to include that of the citizen and of the coproducer reflecting the reality that user involvement goes beyond choice of hospital to include issues surrounding future plans for health services within a region (10,11) and engaging patients in expert patient programmes (21).