Value based healthcare (VBC) is a healthcare approach that focuses on delivering high-quality, effective, and efficient medical services to patients while also considering the cost. It supports better patient outcomes and patient-provider relationships.
What is Value Based Healthcare (VBC) and how it benefits patients?
Benefits of Value Based Healthcare
1. Balances patient outcomes and healthcare costs
It optimises the balance between patient outcomes and healthcare costs, ensuring that patients receive the best possible care without incurring unnecessary costs.
2. Measures health outcomes that matter to patients
Value for patients is created by organising healthcare delivery systems and protocols around patients' medical conditions and needs, measuring the health outcomes that matter to patients (such as complication and re-admission rates), obtaining patient satisfaction data and tracking the costs required to achieve these outcomes.
3. Promotes patient engagement and empowerment
The VBC approach seeks to promote patient engagement and empowerment by encouraging patients to take an active role in managing their own health, participating in decision-making processes and accessing resources and information that help them achieve better health outcomes.
VBC places the patient at the centre of care delivery and focuses on delivering the most effective and efficient treatments. This can occur through better care coordination and use of evidence-based practices, leading to cost savings for patients and the healthcare system.
Partnership with SGH
SGH started their VBC journey in 2020 with the aim to optimise clinical outcomes and costs. The program has since expanded to more than 40 conditions (including common procedures such as total knee replacement and gall bladder removal).
The program has led to improved patient outcomes such as shorter time to recovery and mobility after surgery, and reduction in re-admission and complication rates. An example of SGH's VBC program is the Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) program. Under the ERAS program, about a quarter of the total knee replacement cases are done in a day surgery setting. This means that patients can return home on the day of surgery to recuperate at home. As part of the program, home nurses or therapists visit patients at home to help them recover well in the comfort of their homes.
The VBC program is tailored to meet patient's needs. Clinicians will assess, on a case-by-case basis, if patients are clinically eligible for a day surgery procedure or if an admission is needed. Various factors are considered to ensure that the care plan for each patient is personalised and designed in the patient's best interest (i.e., to achieve the best possible outcomes), which is what a VBC program aims to achieve.
Working with SGH to improve quality of care for patients
AIA Singapore aims to proactively support our customers through their healthcare journey. We are delighted to partner SGH which shares the same objectives as us - to make quality healthcare more accessible and affordable for Singaporeans and to help them live Healthier, Longer, Better Lives.
The goal is to co-create and support a healthcare system that prioritises value and encourages better health outcomes for patients, leading to better patient care, experiences and healthier populations.