Value-based Health Care: Lessons for the Anesthesiologist
At one point or another in our life, we all become consumers of the health care industry. Indeed, health care affects everyone and encompasses a diverse set of services from childbirth, to illness prevention, to the management of chronic disease and end-of-life care. Health care in the United States is executed through a complex set of interrelationships between three distinct parties: payers, providers, and consumers. Each group has its own perspective accompanied by a set of unique incentives, which complicate the adoption of a value-based health care system. To transform the American health care delivery system, all participants including patients, physicians, employers, insurance companies, and the government need to recognize that value is best defined as “a given health outcome per dollar of cost expended.” In this article, we examine some of the challenges to creating and implementing a value-based health care system against the backdrop of a turbulent industry and consider the implications for the anesthesiologist.
Keywords: value-based health care; anesthesiologists; Health Care and Treatment; Value; Cost Management; Problems and Challenges; Health Industry; United States;
Citation:
Martin, J.A., B.L. Potter, T.F. Flanagan, and T.W. Feeley. "Value-based Health Care: Lessons for the Anesthesiologist." International Anesthesiology Clinics 57, no. 1 (Winter 2019): 63–80. View Details