Retail Clinics in Portugal: Go/No-go? : a comprehensive research on consumers’ perspective

• Autor(a) principal: Cardoso, Bárbara do Carmo Santos
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/25287
• topic: Concept testing; Consumer acceptance; Portugal; Primary care; Retail clinics; Aceitação do consumidor; Clínicas de retalho; Cuidados; Testes conceptuais; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

These days, the healthcare sector is continuously changing. Therefore, new concepts were born such as retail clinics, which appears due to retailers’ decision of expanding their strategy into this industry. These are new models of primary care delivery and preventive healthcare, aiming to offer a convenient, fast but committed to quality, and competitive service to everyone. Even though Portugal was advised by OECD to reduce costs in healthcare by shifting care out of hospitals, little has changed yet. Thus, given the success of retail clinics abroad and the lack of published Portuguese research on the topic, this dissertation aims to assess the viability of implementing this concept in Portugal, by investigating its consumer acceptance. To achieve that, it was conducted a cross-sectional descriptive-exploratory research using in-depth interviews and an online questionnaire. The results show that there is an overwhelming consumer acceptance. Moreover, the target consumers of retail clinics in Portugal are characterized by non-conservative people from 18 until 44 years old, who tailor their opinions based on facts, on the efficiency and convenience of the services offered rather than on reputation. These consumers are already accustomed to using private healthcare services, however, some also attend public institutions. Finally, there is demand for retail clinics in Portugal. Though, it is recommended to start small by gradually presenting retail clinics incorporated in pharmacies with just primary care services and with the clinical analyses due to the risk of implementing a new concept.