Today we are talking about the benefits of Value-Based Care. Healthcare providers are adopting value-based care (VBC) frameworks across the globe. This evolution places an emphasis on the quality of care and patient outcomes as opposed to services provided. The advantages of value-based care are enormous, optimizing the experience of patients, providers, and payers in a more streamlined, efficient, and centered healthcare ecosystem.
Defining Value-Based Care
Value-based care is defined as a healthcare system model, where providers are remunerated relative to the health outcomes of a patient. Instead of receiving a fee for each test, visit, or procedure, healthcare practitioners are rewarded financially for delivering high-quality and cost-effective care. This incentivates the adoption of practices like disease prevention, chronic disease management, and increased overall wellness.
In value-based care, there is a greater focus on its definition, “value” which in this context is the ratio of quality to cost to make healthcare more sustainable and patient-centered.
PRIMARY BENEFITS OF VALUE-BASED CARE
1. Better Health Outcomes for Patients
One of the key benefits of value-based care is its ability to enhance patient health outcomes. Because of its focus on improving prevention, early screening, intervention, and ongoing management of chronic diseases, value-based care is systematically designed to reduce hospital readmissions and complications. Value-based care can reduce complications and improve recovery and quality of life by providing individualized care for each patient's unique needs.
For example, value-based care programs can significantly reduce the number of emergencies for patients with diabetes through collaborative care management. Despite experiencing worsening blood sugar levels, value-based program patients are often closely monitored, actively engage with their providers through education, and require fewer emergency visits. On average, common chronic conditions can be proactively managed to result in optimal health outcomes.
2. Holistic, Whole-Person Care
Value-based care focuses on addressing the physical, mental, and social dimensions of a patient’s health.
Providers can come together across disciplines to provide care that is mindful and addresses the patient's individual needs and treatment goals. Value-based care acknowledges that social determinants significantly influence health and health outcomes, such as if a patient has access to enough food.
Addressing social and economic concerns can address the underlying factors contributing to health disparities and guarantee equitable access to care for vulnerable patient populations.
3. Greater Coordination and Communication
VBC promotes an integrated, collaborative team approach to care to maximize all available resources. The whole healthcare team, including primary care doctors, specialists, nurses, pharmacists, and social workers, collaborates closely to deliver coordinated care to patients.
Through the collaborative, team-aspect of value-based care, providers use electronic health records and a single comprehensive care plan, which helps coordinate and avoid repeat tests or conflicting treatment plans.
Value-based care is much less risky because of the team's coordination, which increases efficiency, improves the patient's experience, and presents the patient with coordinated messages about what will happen with their care.
4. Cost Savings and Efficient Resource Use
Value-based care minimizes spending in health care by prioritizing preventive care and minimizing unnecessary care. With fewer unintended hospitalizations and emergency room visits, there is less strain on health care resources, which lowers costs for patients and health care insurance companies.
Providers gain shared savings incentives by delivering care that has improved outcomes but at lower costs.
5. Increased Patient Engagement and Satisfaction
Patients engaged in a value-based care program are well-equipped to manage their health as participants in their health care decisions. Patients can manage their care through patient portals, telehealth, and preventative education, and are encouraged to communicate throughout their health care journey and participate in shared decision-making with their health care provider. Engaged patients are more likely to adhere to treatments and make lifestyle changes, which contributes to improved health outcomes.
Patients who are highly engaged tend to enjoy their experiences and feel that their care is more personalized, thus are more likely to feel satisfied.
6. Provider Well-being and Professional Fulfillment
As value-based care models shift back to caring about meaningful health improvements rather than care delivery and volume based metrics, health care providers struggle less with billing and other administrative burdens that can lead to burnout, and are likely to feel more valued for their contributions, spend more time throughout the day building relationships with patients, and likely exert less energy towards paperwork. These factors can provide an improved environment for work, as there tends to be improved job satisfaction and retention.
CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS IN IMPLEMENTING VALUE-BASED CARE
Value-Based Care (VBC) implementation has its challenges, including:
Technology and data sharing
Adopting VBC revolves around sharing electronic health records (EHRs) that will be interoperable and having sophisticated analytics that identify risks and track outcomes.
Cultural shift:
Providers are to embrace new care delivery models that promote working together around collaboration and outcomes instead of just transactional service volume.
Patient engagement
Some patients are new to building their proactive health management and will need appropriate information, education, and support.
Policy and reimbursement
We need policies differentiating value-based care and payment reforms that describe how these initiatives will be supported.
Despite these obstacles, to advance VBC, you will need to invest in new infrastructure, help educate users in doing their own duties, and work with stakeholders.
THE FUTURE OF VALUE-BASED CARE
- As emerging technology improves, we can help make VBC stronger:
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) can use the large data of the Internet to help predict which patients are likely to be at risk, and what the best treatments are.
- Telehealth improves access and convenience, and the ability to monitor and manage specified chronic diseases remotely.
- Personalized Medicine based on individual genetic composition, and lifestyle information will greatly help access identifying the most personalized interventions, experimenting with the personalized intervention is likely to allow the maximum impact.
- These innovations in VBC will create more impact by becoming more effective, making care more accessible, and helping identify and summarize how care is being distributed.
WHY VBC MATTER TO ALL STAKEHOLDERS?
- Value-based care will likely affect all stakeholders, not just patients and providers.
- Employers/Payers will benefit from reduced costs, improved work days, and improved employee health.
- Healthcare Systems can help promote sustainability by addressing the growing number of new populations, and also consume far fewer resources while improving population health.
Communities enjoy enhanced health equity and lower disparities.
These synergistic benefits all make for a healthier society and decrease healthcare costs.
HOW CAN YOU PREPARE FOR THE VALUE-BASED CARE ERA?
Healthcare professionals can prepare for the value-based care world by:
- Enhancing expertise in quality improvement, data analytics, and patient engagement strategies.
- Accepting collaborative care models and interprofessional care.
- Achieving certification as a Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality (CPHQ) to be an advocate for value-based care.
These actions will place a healthcare workforce in a position to thrive in the changing healthcare environment.
RECOMMENDED LEARNING PATH: CPHQ COURSES AT QUALITY LEADERS ACADEMY
To flourish in the Interprofessional landscape of value-based care and become an effective healthcare leader, healthcare professionals need a foundation of quality improvement, data analytics, and an engagement-oriented approach centered on the patient and their families. A Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality (CPHQ) certification provides healthcare leaders with these foundational skills to effectively lead a value-based care plan. For healthcare professionals interested in a complete and trusted learning approach to value-based care, Quality Leaders Academy has an established CPHQ education path that ensures an in-depth understanding of value-based care value-based care concepts and the required competencies for healthcare quality. CPHQ courses assist nurses, physicians, quality analysts, and health administrators with the understanding and tools necessary for facilitating health-care delivery improvements that are meaningful.
When choosing Quality Leaders Academy for your learning, you will have access to experienced instructors, practical case studies, and materials to help succeed in value-based care environments.
Benefits of value-based care are obvious, it provides better patient outcomes, value savings, improved provider satisfaction, and a more equitable healthcare system. Moving beyond traditional fee-for-service embodies a health care environment that fosters what really matters: delivering high-quality, patient-centered care to create healthier communities.
Investing in technology, education, and supportive policy will increase the speed of this transformation necessary to establish value-based care as the basis of the future of health care delivery.
Read also:
HOLISTIC RISK ANALYSIS IN HEALTHCARE
Resources:
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/explainer/2023/feb/value-based-care-what-it-is-why-its-needed
https://www.definitivehc.com/blog/benefits-of-value-based-care
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/15938-value-based-care