Health economic aspects of person-centred care

Striving to improve the value delivered to patients is the fundamental goal of any healthcare system. Measuring value, by means of health economic analysis, directly informs the decision-making process as to whether a new healthcare intervention is adopted or discarded. A society’s willingness to pay, survival and health-related quality of life are key quantifiable outcomes of cost-effectiveness evaluations. However, there is a need to measure the value of interventions that exist outside of current health economic frameworks, such as the humanistic outcomes encapsulated in person-centred care (PCC).

With consideration to the literature and our own economic evaluations of studies implementing person-centred care, benefits have included improvements in self-efficacy, empowerment, disease management, clinical outcomes, and physical functioning. However, few studies have reported measurable differences in traditional outcomes of economic evaluations, such as health-related quality of life. In order for PCC to become ‘standard practice’ within the current healthcare systems, the outcomes that identify with PCC interventions need to be incorporated within evaluations. Only through standardising the methods for evaluating PCC interventions can informed decisions be made that truly represent the benefits to all stakeholders.

We are thus conducting economic evaluations of person-centred care implemented in different contexts and populations, with both traditional health economic methods and with outcomes aligned with the ethics of person-centredness.

The project developing a core outcome set for the economic evaluation of person-centred interventions, including eHealth, thus investigates the knowledge demands among ivolved decision makers.

Data collection includes a systematic literature review and an expert panel study, in order to develop consensus of preferred outcomes within stakeholder groups. Included stakeholders groups comprise of patients, healthcare providers, researchers and government representatives, all key decision-makers involved in the development and implementation of new care models. Identified preferred outcomes will further be compared to those previously used in evaluations in the literature. This will allow for more accurate decision-making from stakeholder groups in the design, implementation and evaluation of person-centred care, as well as increasing transparency in healthcare decision-making.