What is the value of your health? is the question that challenges us to build new knowledge on value assessment, citizens’ engagement and outcomes measurement in Healthcare.
Healthcare systems always had the aim of delivering value to patients. Different approaches have been developed to define value in Health, by various thinkers and their knowledge and perspectives. Recently, the concept has gained new attention, not only due to the raising costs and resources’ waste within Health systems but also due to new evidence of treatment outcomes’ variability. Hence, it needs to be tested, re-thought and adapted to social changes and demands.
Traditional concepts of value assessment use clinical evidence-based models or classical accounting models as an instrument. However, what pharma and insurance companies, citizens, caregivers, and patients think about value in Health is now starting to be truly considered in healthcare assessment methods. Additionally, digital devices, tools, and contents are disrupting the possibilities of citizens’ engagement in their own health and wellbeing, disease symptoms, treatment options, etc. Patients and healthcare providers are no longer restricted to the physical boundaries of hospital settings or silos of disease knowledge. As a result, society is growing in health literacy and willing to take an active role in self-managing their own health status.
In this context, VOH.CoLAB is assessing value in Healthcare through Value-based Healthcare concepts, tests, lessons learned, and improvements within the full cycle of care to provide scientific evidence for the pertinence of this new approach to sustainability of Healthcare systems worldwide.
— About the author —
As CEO, Ana Rita is the scientific head of VOH.CoLAB, developing strong collaborative and multidisciplinary networks with companies and academia to implement real-world pilots with the full engagement of practitioners and patients, validating tools and methods and leveraging the healthcare transformation and citizens’ quality of life.
