“One needs to structure a system by which efforts must be made to deliver value to patients in terms of patient results, or outcomes per $ on health care costs, or in other words “lower costs without impairing quality.” In the present scenario, the most important drawback has been that, despite a string of reforms, the core factor, which is valuable to patients has not been suitably or appropriated addressed. Besides, the competitive elements in health care, far from creating better standards of performance and suitably addressing and alleviating adverse situations, have actually exacerbated it, in terms of skewed value systems and the setting of wrong priorities in health care systems, perhaps induced by profit motives.
“To be sure, what sets hospitals apart from other providers of goods and services is that American society, uniquely, expects them to deliver health care to people who cannot pay for it.”
In short, the time is now ripe for seeking major reforms, not only in the way health care is being dispensed with, but in terms of the patient value and benefits that accrue, in terms of better diagnosis, lesser need for invasive and expensive surgery, reducing drug costs, high degree of curing rates, meeting patient caring criteria in terms of the level and standard of care, and so on.
It is often wrongly believed that increased health care costs mean a better and enhanced level of patient care and services – nothing could be further from the truth. The cost of care reduces, as the standards and quality of healthcare increases, and this is a major aspect, as far as medical care in the United States is concerned. Perhaps, it is time to advance paradigm shifts which, while addressing the need for delivering value to patients, also seek to avoid unhealthy competition and price cuttings, which serves to benefit one competitor at the cost of another. Such practices need to be actively curbed and ways and means devised by which health care business could be a win-win situation for all parties concerned.