I went to the AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting over the weekend (it’s probably the biggest health policy conference of the year), and then this morning I went to the annual report for one of the regions participating in RWJF’s Aligning Forces for Quality, and I can’t stand the abuse of the word “value” any longer. The picture on the right is part of the cover of the program I came home with from the meeting this morning. Does the text strike anyone else as . . . ineffective? Shortening the path is great, but shortening it to “high-quality, high-value health care”?
Let’s do a refresher on what the word “value” means. This has a precise definition in the professional and academic world, and I guess anyone can choose to define a word however they want, but this is the widely accepted (and most useful) definition:
Value = Quality / Price
Quality can be defined differently as well, but it generally includes outcomes, patient experience, and everything a patient wants. It doesn’t just include quantitative metrics, but it also includes all the softer metrics that are important to patients. For example, the softer metrics related to a physician would include bedside manner, friendly office staff, convenience, length of relationship, and so forth.
Price is the amount of money paid to get the quality. PRICE IS NOT THE SAME AS COST, NOR IS IT THE SAME AS TOTAL SPENDING. I’ve never done all caps for a sentence before, but this is the first time I felt like a sentence needed it. Cost would be the actual costs that were incurred to provide the service, but patients don’t care about cost. They care about the price, the thing they actually have to pay. And, in healthcare, beware of the word “charge” as well, which generally refers to the price a provider is asking for even if the insurer pays him something completely different. Confused? I explain provider pricing in an earlier post.
Now that the more appropriate meaning of the word “value” is understood, look back at the text on the cover picture. “Shortening the Path to High-quality, Low-cost Health Care” would work. “Shortening the Path to High-value Health Care” would also work, but I guess it would not be as explicit as it would be to anyone who hasn’t read this blog post. But not Hooper Humperdink. Not him.
So, next time you hear someone say, “We need to improve the value of healthcare delivered in the U.S.,” you should think, “Ah. This person wants to improve the quality and/or decrease the prices of healthcare in the U.S.” And FYI, the only way we can substantially decrease prices is to decrease COSTS first. Yes, I would say that our new absolutely most important goal in the health policy world (now that the ACA stands; for the time being at least) is to help providers decrease costs and then make sure prices follow.
Clear Thinking on Healthcare 