WorldHealthCareBlog.org » Defining and Measuring “Value” in Healthcare : a hosted discussion on innovation in health care

WorldHealthCareBlog.org » Defining and Measuring “Value” in Healthcare : a hosted discussion on innovation in health care: "Defining and Measuring “Value” in Healthcare by Scott MacStravic May 10, 2007 at 2:12 pm · Filed under Prevention and Health Promotion, Disease Management With the growing interest in and number of applications of “Value-Based” purchasing and management of healthcare, the need to define and measure what we mean by value becomes paramount. The challenge is quite different in “reactive sickness care” as opposed to “proactive health care”, though there is some overlap between them. By definition, value represents the “good for the bad”, or benefits for the costs, but the question has never been settled as to whether this means the net of benefits minus costs, or the ratio of benefits divided by costs. One of the reasons this question is mainly ignored is that in most cases, the only possibility is benefits divided by the costs, the ratio of the good vs. the bad, because benefits are measured in one “currency” and costs in another. In sickness care, benefits are defined as improvements in health measures, restored function, and similar non-financial terms, while costs are measured in dollars. Hence only ratios"