The future of health systems and how Value-Based Healthcare can tackle the challenges they face, by shifting to integrated models that improve outcomes for patients and foster sustainability, was discuss in the conference on “Shifting to Value – Saving Europe’s Healthcare Systems”. European healthcare systems face critical challenges, from rising costs and constrained budgets, to demographic pressure and growth in chronic diseases. Governments start realising industry decides how healthcare gets delivered. As such, frontline healthcare professionals should get their act together, mainly doctors and nurses, to co-design with politicians, policy-makers and regulators how the future healthcare system best looks like. If not, managers will follow the industry funds.
When discussing value-based healthcare, we need to consider the promotion of healthy lifestyles, and patients, healthcare providers and researchers should work together on the optimisation of value taking into account outcomes and costs measurement for every patient, integrated care delivery across separate facilities, and expansion of excellent services geographically. It is important to align policy, principles and enablers, as it is important to assess the benefit of the procedures in terms of quality and efficiency. People-centred care needs a better communication with greater involvement of patients to avoid suboptimal healthcare outcomes. Miguel González-Sancho explained that “the role of incentives needs to be redefined, with patients more involved. Access, quality and efficiency need to find a balance, with no dimension to suffer. In this sense, technology and data are necessary to deliver more prevention and prediction”.
The role of data collection is also key in this debate, knowing that it needs to be prioritised, not added more to, unless ‘the machine’ collects them all, and should focus on three priorities: access to data to avoid waste; personalised healthcare focused on the supply side; citizens’ participation to move urgently to prevention. It is time to make sure direct patient care increases, at the expense of bureaucratic data collection which pulls the nurses away from the bedside. And technology has a key role to play when designed in partnership, not imposed. Furthermore, it is key to have standardised measures to compare health data, which needs to be easy to interpret by all stakeholders. So, electronic health records are necessary, including nursing sensitive data, key for continuity of care. Likewise, privacy and standardisation of outcomes are needed to protect data against unjustified use.
In a well-functioning ecosystem, the creation of value for patients and citizens should be the main objective of all actors involved. Value-based health care is therefore a concept supported by the nursing profession if it goes beyond cost-control: quality and safety should drive better outcomes. So, it’s time the European Commission starts supporting frontline Healthcare Professionals!
The panel included:
- Maggie De Block, Minister of Social Affairs and Health, Belgian Ministry of Social Affairs and Health
- Carl Savage and Pamela Mazzocato, Senior Researchers, Karolinska Institute, Sweden
- Nicola Bedlington, Secretary General, European Patients Forum
- Luke Slawomirski, Health Economist, OECD Health Division
- Miguel González-Sancho, Head of the Unit “eHealth, Well-Being and Ageing” at the European Commission, within the Directorate General “Communication Networks, Content and Technology
- Clemens Martin Auer, Director General, Austrian Federal Ministry of Health
- Birgitta Sacrédeus, Chair of Health Committee, Committee of the Regions
- Erik Jylling, Executive Vice President, Danish Regions