Create Value

One of the four cornerstones of the Health Policy Center recommendations, creating value involves improving patient health outcomes and satisfaction with U.S. health care and decreasing medical errors, costs and waste. Creating value is the responsibility of providers, medical industry leaders and patients.

Specific recommendations

• Develop a definition of value based upon the needs and preferences of patients; measurable outcomes, safety and service compared to the cost of care over time.
• Measure and publicly display outcomes, patient satisfaction scores and costs as a whole. Create competition around results through pricing for appropriate bundles of services and quality transparency.
• Increase support of health care delivery science, which allows providers to improve the care, efficiency and business processes that support the practice of medicine.
• Create a trusted mechanism to synthesize scientific, clinical and medical information for both patients and providers.
• Hold all health care sectors accountable for reducing waste.
• High-value care delivery.

Develop care programs for patients who need intense, high-cost medical services, such as patients who have complicated diabetes or heart failure.

Advantages

Quality and efficiency: Increasing support for health care delivery science (systems engineering) will allow for continual analysis of the outcomes and processes of care, a key step to improving quality, reducing waste and lowering costs.

Easier decision-making: Understandable, public reporting of outcomes, patient satisfaction scores and prices will arm individuals with the information required to make better value-based choices.