The case of value-based healthcare for people living with complex long-term conditions

BACKGROUND: There is a trend towards value-based health service, striving to cut costs while generating value for the patient. The overall objective comprises higher-quality health services and improved patient safety and cost efficiency. The approach could align with patient-centred care, as it entails a focus on the patient’s experience of her or his entire cycle of care, including the use of well-defined outcome measurements. Challenges arise when the approach is applied to health services for people living with long-term complex conditions that require support from various healthcare services. The aim of this work is to critically discuss the value-based approach and its implications for patients with long-term complex conditions. Two cases from clinical practice and research form the foundation for our reasoning, illustrating several challenges regarding value-based health services for people living with long-term complex conditions. DISCUSSION: Achieving value-based health services that provide the health outcomes that matter to patients and providing greater patient-centredness will place increased demands on the healthcare system. Patients and their informal caregivers must be included in the development and establishment of outcome measures. The outcome measures must be standardized to allow evaluation of specific conditions at an aggregated level, but they must also be sensitive enough to capture each patient’s individual needs and goals. Healthcare systems that strive to establish value-based services must collaborate beyond the organizational boundaries to create clear patient trajectories in order to avoid fragmentation. SUMMARY: The shift towards value-based health services has the potential to align healthcare-service delivery with patient-centred care if serious efforts to take the patient’s perspective into account are made. This is especially challenging in fragmented healthcare systems and for patients with long-term- and multi-setting-care needs.