Like many clinicians and policymakers, cardiovascular disease (CVD) patients define value in health care in terms of the quality and cost of care they receive. But patients also emphasize factors including their communication with, and trust in, the doctors and nurses who provide their care as important measures of value.
These are the findings of a survey of more than 800 CVD patients and caregivers published in the American Heart Association’s peer-reviewed journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. Also published is a call to action for adopting a value-based payment model that focuses on long-term disease management and prevention of heart failure, a leading cause of hospitalizations and readmissions nationwide that is projected to cost the health care system $70 billion by 2030.
Both papers are products of the Value in Healthcare Initiative, a collaboration between the American Heart Association, the world’s leading voluntary organization focused on heart and brain health, and the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy. The initiative was launched in 2018 to convene representatives from across the health care ecosystem to identify and address key opportunities to improve value and transform cardiovascular care.
“Mounting pressures on our health care system leading up to and including the COVID-19 pandemic add urgency to the need to prioritize value and ensure resources best serve the needs of patients and society,” said Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association, and Mark McClellan, MD, Ph.D., director of Duke-Margolis, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner and former Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator. “Moving from fee-for-service to paying for value in health care—by elevating telehealth and community-based care, making clinical trials more efficient, ensuring health coverage matches care with patient values, focusing on chronic disease prevention, and other efforts—has never been more critical.”
Patient Perspectives on Value
Want to publish your own articles on DistilINFO Publications?
Send us an email, we will get in touch with you.
One goal of the Value in Healthcare Initiative is to inform the development of patient-centered policies and care delivery programs with an understanding of how CVD patients define value. This paper examines how U.S. patients with CVD define value in health care, how they assess the value of a clinical visit and how satisfied they are with the value of their care.
The survey, believed to be the first to focus on CVD patients and their perspectives on health care value, included patients recruited from the American Heart Association’s Support Network online forums and by a private research firm.
More patients surveyed (42 percent) ranked “having knowledgeable and competent practitioners” as the highest measure of value in a health care visit, followed by “financial affordability” (29 percent), “timely access to care” (16 percent) and having “a clear treatment plan” (15 percent).
Findings were similar by gender but differed by age. Older patients were more likely than younger patients to rank having competent practitioners as most valuable to them, but younger respondents were significantly more likely to rank financial affordability as most valuable.
Responses also differed by race and ethnicity. Respondents identifying as African American, Hispanic/Latino or another minority ethnic group were more likely than self-identified whites to rank financial affordability as most important. African Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, and Asians also were more likely than whites to rank treatment based on recommendations from a scientific organization as most valuable.
Source: Medical Xpress
