Providing value-based health care to patients will require changes at every level of care delivery, from individual clinical decisions to systemic care transformations. Each clinician can decrease overuse and waste through “choosing wisely,” resulting in better physical and financial outcomes for patients. We also must help create systems that are organized around the needs of patients, utilizing multi-disciplinary teams working together toward a shared goal, with accountability for improving outcomes and costs. On a policy level, payment incentives can be more aligned with the delivery of value through mechanisms such as bundled payments across entire cycles of care.
We can create this health care world, but we all must set our sights on this same goal and work together to achieve it, each leading from where we stand and advocating for a better system.
Using different systems to coordinate patient care adds value to the patient experience and can reduce frustration.
A multidisciplinary care team organized around patient conditions can provide more coordinated and effective care, and can deliver “high-touch” care for the most high-risk or vulnerable patients.
Value-based health care is fundamentally about improving outcomes for patients, thus it is critical to measure patient outcomes and constantly strive to improve these results.
The only way to accurately determine value is to understand actual costs of delivering care and maximizing cost-efficiency.
“Choosing Wisely” is an international campaign led by health professional societies to decrease potentially harmful overuse of medical services.
Payment methods should shift to align with the delivery of value-based health care, which is based on outcomes achieved and appropriate efficiency, rather than merely number of tests/services/procedures provided.
Health information technology has the potential to help make care delivery better and easier through providing outcome and cost data analytics, promoting effective care pathways and interventions, increasing access to care, and restructuring care delivery.
CareMore Health has created team-based, comprehensive programs that have delivered better outcomes at lower costs for chronically ill, frail elderly, and other high-risk patients.
Comprehensive assessment of the concepts of value-based health care and components of value-based health care delivery.
ARTICAL
Porter ME, Thomas H. Lee MD.
Harvard Business Review
Published October 1, 2013.
ARTICAL
Porter and Teisberg
Harvard Business Review Press, 2006.