What makes us need a Value-Based Care System
The value-based care model is the need of the hour because it puts people at the centre of the healthcare system. It aims at achieving quality healthcare outcomes for the incurred expenditure. On one hand, the quality healthcare outcomes thus achieved will promote a healthier population, on the other hand, economised healthcare spending will relieve the consumers and governments of the cost burden.
Incorporating value-based care will reform how the healthcare services are regulated, measured and made accountable. The value-based care model is different from the fee-for-service model. Its proactive, organised and data-driven measures will pave the way to rethink the entire healthcare system and help the healthcare providers to achieve effectiveness and efficiency.
In the current fee-for-service model, costs increase while satisfaction decreases. The shortcomings of the present healthcare system, including the rising healthcare prices and general dissatisfaction among patients, are among the key problems that the value-based care model aims to resolve. Today, technological innovations, like telehealth, are making more and more people aware. These innovations are helping people to decide what is best for them. And for this reason, healthcare providers must adapt to the fast-upgrading consumer, knowledge and technology driven market. It is a requirement across the world.
As for India, value-based care will benefit people across the social strata. Presently, the rich can afford pricey healthcare therefore, they have access to quality. But the poor can afford only low-cost healthcare where the quality is not assured. Thus, a value-based care system will empower India to provide quality healthcare to everyone irrespective of their capacity to pay. Regardless of this, we also have examples of Indian healthcare providers who demonstrated the practice of value-based care even before it became a widely accepted concept. In a way, making India a forerunner in practising value-based care.
Also, in India, healthcare spending increased by 73 per cent from 2020-21 to 2021-2022 as a result of increased investment in initiatives like Ayushman Bharat. With the incorporation of value-based care, such expenditure burdens are likely to get reduced up to a considerable extent.
How Online Medical Coaching Centres Are Teaching Value-Based Care?
Value-based care is an emerging concept therefore, the absence of a generalised curriculum and localised faculty expertise are the main barriers to its demonstration. Online course providers and coaching centres are developing modules on value-based care that are accessible to students, health service providers as well as other important stakeholders.
Students are provided with Interactive modules along with supplementary study materials. These modules are designed as per the learner’s capability to retain. Online periodic webinars, online discussion forums and repositories for sharing tools are some methods that are used for the cognitive engagement of the learners. In the emerging field of ed-tech, there are coaching centres like Dr Bhatia Medical Coaching Institute (DBMCI) which are addressing such issues of providing the medical students with the updated study resources, as per the changing healthcare paradigms.
Online medical coaching centres are teaching the importance of value-based care to students. Students are taught what is important to patients, how to measure changes in the healthcare system, multiple value-based healthcare models, cost allocation strategies, and even patient communication approaches. All of these value-based care courses, being multidisciplinary, comprise a wide range of topics, including public health, management, behavioural studies, risk, and so on.
The main aim is to expand the abilities of decision making, delivering efficient services and understanding the social determinants of health care among healthcare providers. A multidisciplinary approach is adopted to better explain value-based care.
Conclusion
Sustainable development goal 3 requires well being for all of all ages. To achieve this goal ‘health first model’ should be adopted by both present and future healthcare providers. Since value-based care does away with wasteful healthcare expenditure and provides value to all the patients, thus, it is expected to be a step towards making healthcare equitable and sustainable. So, teaching value-based care courses must be extended to the students as well as other relevant stakeholders to equip them with the latest available technology and knowledge.
(The author Dr. Nachiket Bhatia, CEO, Dr. Bhatia Medical Coaching Institute & E-Gurukul and the views expressed in this article are his own)
