Value-Based Supply: How to improve health system sustainability

The third paper in the series of white papers by our expert Affiliated Organisation, the VBHC Academy at Swansea University, is now available to download!

The first paper, “Value-Based Supply: Reimagining Value from Within”, identified 8 critical success factors for MedTech companies to engage successfully with Value-Based Health Systems; while the second paper, “Value-Based Supply: Dynamic competencies and the power of digital transformation”, identified opportunities for MedTech companies to be a catalyst for Value Based Health Care (VBHC) using digital technologies.

Now, the third paper turns its attention to the existential threat for healthcare systems: sustainability. How can we ensure both economic and environmental sustainability, and what is the relationship to Value-Based Supply?

Whilst MedTech can reduce their own emissions and environmental impact there are many, further opportunities to engage in value-based partnerships with health care providers to improve system sustainability and value. Internally, innovative products and solutions help reduce the environmental footprint of healthcare and bring economic and logistic benefits which can support the delivery of better outcomes for reduced total cost of care.

Externally, every activity of “no value” in healthcare delivery, such as journeys for unnecessary consultations, procedures and treatments that do not meet a patient’s need, investigations that are repeated unnecessarily and unwarranted variation in care processes are also wasting resources and creating an environmental impact on the local community and an adverse economic impact for the provider and payer.

It is vital that MedTech companies find ways of engaging with providers of care to improve the sustainability of their clinical pathways and optimise the choice and use of technologies to maximise allocative and personal value. Decisions to offer treatments that are of no value to patients, even if they are “cheap in cost” are not only a disservice to patients but often create cost elsewhere and are detrimental to the economic and environmental sustainability of the health care system.

There are real opportunities for MedTech companies that offer added value services such as pathway optimisation, mentoring and proctorship of clinicians in product selection and outcomes measurement to work alongside their customers to enhance sustainability for all partners in the ecosystem.

Read the full report here!