Global aspirations for value-based health care
The authors of the New England Journal of Medicine Catalyst article urge countries to allocate 1 percent of their health care budgets toward establishing standards and processes for assessing the value of health outcomes. What matters most to patients is the fundamental principle of value-based health care. The cost of unnecessary care amounts to billions every year, not only in the United States but worldwide. This article presents the context for an international “moonshot” aimed at enhancing health care.
Some aspects of this paper address incentives for physicians. For instance, in France, ophthalmologists receive bonuses for reporting outcome measures (such as post-op visual acuity and improved daily living activities) after cataract surgery. By sharing data on cataract surgery outcomes, eye surgeons can set standards or benchmarks for their procedures. By promoting transparency through incentives, the French establish a platform for “pay for participation” rather than “pay for performance.” However, as more data accumulates, the performance of individual surgeons will be compared to that of their peers.
