Participation in Multidisciplinary Teams Among Healthcare Professionals: A Discrete Choice Experiment in Tertiary Public Hospitals in China

Jie Jia,1,* Tao Sun,1,* Jiamin Tang,1 Kaidi Sun,1 Zhengnan Meng,1 Hailong Zhu,2 Xianhong Huang1 1Department of Health Policy and Management, School of Public Health, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, 311121, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Sociology, School of Public Administration, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, 311121, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Xianhong Huang, Department of Health Policy and Management, School of Public Health, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, 311121, People’s Republic of China, Tel/Fax +86-571-2886-5627, Email [email protected]: Healthcare professionals’ participation is crucial for the efficient implementation of multidisciplinary team (MDT) collaboration models. We identified the key factors influencing healthcare professionals’ preference to participate in MDTs in tertiary hospitals.Methods: To clarify the attributes and levels of the discrete choice experiment (DCE), we conducted a targeted literature review and conducted in-depth interviews with MDT service providers. Following this, a DCE was designed to evaluate healthcare professionals’ preferences for MDT participation, and the influence of factors such as salary subsidies, leadership attention, patient participation, quality assessment, working intensity, and case complexity. A conditional logit model estimated the utility of each attribute. Willingness-to-pay estimates were derived by taking the negative ratio of the coefficients of non-economic and economic attributes. A series of policy simulation analyses were conducted.Results: Two hundred healthcare professionals completed the questionnaire, with 180 valid responses used for analysis. All attributes were statistically significant. Leadership attention and working intensity were the primary factors influencing staff willingness to participate in MDTs, followed by quality assessment and salary subsidies. Significant preference differences were observed between respondents; compared with mid-level staff, senior-level healthcare professionals believed patient engagement would be more helpful in boosting participation. The policy simulation showed that changing leadership attention from “neglect” to “emphasis” would increase the probability of staff choosing to participate in MDTs from 24.4% to 66.98%.Conclusion: Leadership attention was the primary concern for healthcare professionals in MDTs. To effectively motivate staff participation in MDTs, policymakers should adopt a holistic approach that considers work motivation and individual backgrounds, including competitive salary packages and a positive work environment. They should concurrently introduce MDT case complexity measurement tools to optimize resource allocation. Addressing staff members’ unique needs and career aspirations by creating targeted training programs, pathways for advancement, and personalized career development plans are also crucial.Keywords: multidisciplinary medical services, participation motivation, health services research, discrete choice experiment