The future of healthcare lies in building value-based ecosystems

Healthcare will be at the center of our future, as populations age, expectations for quality of life rise, and a wave of incredible new medical technologies transform the industry.

Yet a central issue is the efficacy of healthcare amid rising costs, constrained governments, and deeply entrenched inefficiencies.

Yesterday I gave a keynote at the SA Health Supplier Conference on Creating Tomorrow’s Healthcare Together, addressing an audience of over 600 suppliers to a $6 billion healthcare system.

My keynote looked broadly at the issues shaping the future of healthcare and the vital role of suppliers in effective service delivery and innovation.

One of the issues I touched on was the rise of value-based healthcare and procurement.

In essence value-based healthcare is measuring value by patient outcomes, as defined by the patients themselves, relative to the cost.

While this principle of course guides many choices in how health services are delivered, one of the most important is in terms of procurement. Examples include a Norwegian health system that used patient-reported pain as criteria for procuring IV catheters, and a Canadian province that required pacemaker suppliers to share the costs of replacement surgery.

Perhaps most importantly of all, this is not just about working with single suppliers. A value-based mentality should drive the development of ecosystems of providers and healthcare organizations to collaborate, innovate, and deliver value to patients.

If the future of healthcare turns out in a way that we like, it will be largely due to the development of effective value-based ecosystems.