Reduce Costs by Increasing Value to the Patient from H and HN

By Jeffrey D. Selberg January 12, 2012

Encouraging healthier behaviors, respecting patients' time, coordinating care, promoting smart shopping and reforming payment systems — all will provide better value to the patient and lower costs.

An all-too-familiar institutional response, when facing the challenge of reducing health care costs, is to reduce health care benefits. But that approach entails limiting access to care, lowering health quality, and increasing out-of-pocket costs for patients — all of which run contrary to better health and better care at a lower cost.

A better way — and one that aligns with patient-centered care — is increasing value to the patient. We can do that by reducing waste and rewarding quality.
The Scope of the Waste Problem

Noriaki Kano, the renowned expert on quality management known for his leadership on customer satisfaction, identified six categories of waste in health care that are especially relevant: delay, rework (performing the same task a second time), overproduction, movement (unnecessary transportation of people, products or information), defects, and waste of spirit and skill.

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