Newswise — Glasgow, Scotland, UK—6 November 2017—ISPOR, the professional society for health economics and outcomes research (HEOR), opened its 20th Annual European Congress in Glasgow, Scotland, UK this morning with the first plenary session, “Where Is the Value in Value-Based Health Care?.” 

The plenary discussion was moderated by Maarten J. IJzerman, PhD, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands. Speakers included Peter Naredi, University of Gothenburg and European CanCer Organization, Brussels, Belgium; Bettina Ryll, MD, PhD, Melanoma Patient Network Europe and European Society for Medical Oncology, Uppsala, Sweden; Jason Arora, MD, MPH, Medtronic, Watford, UK; and Luke Slawomirski, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris, France. 

Value-based health care approaches pricing of health care products and services in relation to the additional value they produce. Interest in value-based care has grown significantly as many health care practitioners and policy makers in European institutions now promote this approach as a more holistic, patient-centered understanding of value in health care. 

In this plenary session, speakers discussed the challenges and key differences of value-based health care compared with cost-effectiveness analysis, providing insights from a variety of perspectives, including clinicians, policy makers, patients, and manufacturers. 

Maarten J. IJzerman, PhD presented an overview of value-based health care noting that, “improving value is the only real solution.” He defined value as the set of outcomes that matter to a patient’s condition over the total cost of delivering those outcomes through the full cycle of care. Dr. IJzerman pointed out that the challenge in delivering value-based care is determining how to best design a health care delivery system that substantially improves patient value. 

Peter Naredi offered a clinician’s viewpoint and spoke about value-based cancer care sharing his experiences as a surgeon working in multidisciplinary teams. He pointed out that direct costs account for only half of total costs of care for a patient’s condition. Professor Naredi identified several “fast ways” to improve health care, including standardization and education, multidisciplinary care, and patient-centered care with informed patients involved in decisions. He stressed the importance of the multidisciplinary team approach in fulfilling the promise of value-based care. 

Bettina Ryll, MD, PhD provided the patient advocacy perspective and noted that while value-based health care promotes a patient-centered approach; the definition of “patient value” is not universally agreed upon. She pointed out that “value,” for example, can be seen very differently by a researcher compared to a patient living with a disease. Dr. Ryll discussed the issue of cost, noting that price is not cost. She stressed that health is an asset for society and not simply the absence of disease. 

Jason Arora, MD, MPH presented the manufacturer viewpoint and spoke about how value-based health care is transforming medical technology suppliers. He noted that health care faces a unique set of challenges: a) health care must be provided to everyone at some point in their lives, b) health care must be of high quality as health is a key enabler of everything we do, and c) health care must be provided with finite resources. Dr. Arora stated that a value-based approach to health care is prompting medtech suppliers to evolve into service providers. 

Luke Slawomirski presented the policy maker perspective and examined the issue of value across a health care system. He noted that when assessing value it is important to look at the effects on populations over time. As an example, the value of curing hepatitis C in a patient impacts that patient’s life and the lives of other individuals who might have contracted the disease if that patient had not been cured. Mr. Slawomirski pointed out that for policy makers value is not just an equation; rather value is a way of thinking.
 

Additional information on the ISPOR 20th Annual European Congress can be found here. Released presentations from the congress can be found here. Interested parties can follow news and developments from the congress on social media using the hashtag #ISPORGlasgow.
 

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ABOUT ISPOR
ISPOR, the professional society for health economics and outcomes research (HEOR), is an international, multistakeholder, nonprofit dedicated to advancing HEOR excellence to improve decision making for health globally. The Society is the leading source for scientific conferences, peer-reviewed and MEDLINE-indexed publications, good practices guidance, education, collaboration, and tools/resources in the field.
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Meeting Link: ISPOR 20th Annual European Congress, Nov-2017