Value-driven approaches in healthcare delivery and outcomes

Value Driven Healthcare:

Thoughts on Roadmap Document:

The Roadmap for Implementing Value Driven Healthcare in the Traditional Medicare Fee-for-Service Program is a document that provides a comprehensive pathway on the adoption of value-based purchasing by hospitals. The paper recognizes that value-based purchasing is the fundamental principle for providing the shift by Medicare from paying health care providers depending on their volume of services. The efforts will be accompanied by future attempts to relate payment to the quality and efficiency of the provided health care services. In addition to acknowledging the importance of value-based purchasing, the paper also explains some of its aspects like effective resource utilization analysis.

Some of the important elements of value-based purchasing that are discussed in the document include payment for quality, transparency and public reporting, the utilization of resource by providers, performance rewards, and aligning benefits among providers. It also consists of inventory and status of vital projects, examples, and programs that currently support the proposed change ("Roadmap for Implementing Value," n.d.).

Following an analysis of the content of this paper, it basically summarizes the purpose, current issues under analysis, and the outcomes of every payment reform examples that are being funded by Medicare in each category of key elements. it's important to note that the document contains the already completed in-depth analysis on the models of payment reforms. This is a balanced document because it not only discusses the current work in implementing value-based purchasing but it also describes the next steps for this process in the Medicare FFS Program. These necessary steps are payment for ESRD services, development of physician VBP plan, hospital VBP plan follow-up, and PAC payment reform initiative.

Comments on Value-Based Healthcare Document:

Chapter One of Dlugacz book regarding Value-Based Healthcare Document basically presents the key drivers for transforming health care practices for the purpose of enhancing care and services. The author discusses these drivers based on their sources as some are external to the hospital, others from private organizations and governmental agencies, and others from internal sources like quality management, governance, and leadership functions. In this chapter, the author provides an in-depth analysis of internal and external drivers of quality improvements, the link between quality care and financial incentives, and the role of quality management in enhancing patient safety.

The external drivers of quality improvements work to change healthcare because many health care officers fail to recognize that patient safety and quality outcomes are forces that affect the budget of a health care organization (Dlugacz, 2010). The external drivers have become vital forces in value-based purchasing because of their ability to link quality to finance. In contrast internal forces that influence quality improvements occur because of the lack or absence of oversight within hospitals. These forces are largely attributed to the lack of establishment of standards by physicians for other physicians. In attempts to provide solutions to these problems, the paper suggests that a quality management department should be a supervisory internal body to supervise, analyze, and take action within the hospital.