Week 2 Discussion Response- Delivery of Healthcare

2

Discussion Post: Understanding the Shift to Value-Based Care

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Discussion Post: Understanding the Shift to Value-Based Care

Value-based care is a system of delivering healthcare services where the primary focus is on the ideal patient outcome as compared to the cost of providing the patient outcome. NEJM Catalyst (2017) also indicates that in value-based healthcare, the emphasis is placed on quality improvement, patient experience, and unnecessary expenditures by reimbursing performance instead of service quantity. This implies that providers receive incentives to maintain healthy patients, prevent complications chronically, and effectively control and manage them. Smith (2020) goes on to say that value-based care focuses on care coordination, evidence-based practice, data-driven decision-making, and accountability throughout the continuum of care.

The need to transform pay for performance (P4P) to value-based care was motivated by the long-time worries about increasing costs of healthcare services, fragmentation, and quality inconsistencies. Though P4P models tried to provide incentives to achieve better performance, they frequently promoted single measures of performance instead of overall patient health outcomes. According to Shi and Singh (2022), the model of value-based care, such as accountable care organizations and bundled payments, became a more holistic approach toward waste and variability reduction in care and population health. Another way the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services hastened the transition was by launching value-based programs that aimed at increasing efficiency and guaranteeing payment based on quality and not quantity of care.

This shift has resulted in quantifiable positive change in patient outcomes and experiences, especially in cost, quality, and access. The value-based care saves money by avoiding needless hospital stays, promoting early intervention at the first stage of disease, and the adoption of coordinated teams in care, which lessens redundant services. Qualitatively, the providers are motivated to act according to evidence-based recommendations, minimize medical errors, and devote their attention to the long-term patient well-being. Another advantage is improved access, where value-based models promote service integration, e.g., telehealth, patient education, care navigation, and community-based health resources, which enable patients to have access to timely care.

References

NEJM Catalyst. (2017). What is value-based healthcare?

Shi, L., & Singh, D. A. (2022). Delivering health care in America: A systems approach (8th ed.).

Smith, T. M. (2020). What is value-based care? These are the key elements.