A new book by three leading hospital medicine advocates for maximizing efficiency and outcomes while managing costs and avoiding waste in healthcare—also known as value-based healthcare—offers a primer filled with practical advice for doctors and other clinicians.1 The hospitalist authors of Understanding Value-Based Healthcare, Christopher Moriates, MD, of the University of California-San Francisco, Vineet Arora, MD, MAPP, of the University of Chicago, and Neel Shah, MD, MPP, of Harvard Medical School, all have leadership positions in Costs of Care, a nonprofit organization formed in 2009 to help empower patients and their caregivers to deflate medical bills.
In a recent op-ed piece at MedPage Today, the book’s authors emphasize the harms for patients when doctors fail to consider the impact of medical bills or screen patients for financial harm.2 Doctors should help their patients navigate tradeoffs of lower-cost treatment options. The authors hope to embed principles of value-based care into the apprenticeship of health professional education through initiatives such as Costs of Care’s “Teaching Value & Choosing Wisely Challenge,” which received 80 submissions from medical students and faculty from across the United States and Canada presenting bright ideas and innovations for integrating value into education.
References
- Moriates C, Arora V, Shah N. Understanding Value-Based Healthcare. New York City: McGraw Hill Education; 2015.
- Moriates C, Arora V, Shah N. Op-ed: how to rein in out-of-control healthcare costs. May 5, 2015. MedPage Today. Accessed July 2, 2015.