How healthcare commissioners can design systems that align with patient priorities and deliver measurable outcomes.
In healthcare, terms like person-centered and value-based care are often used as aspirations. These approaches describe services that put individuals’ needs, preferences, and experiences at the heart of decision-making.
But should they remain aspirational? Or is it time to make them the norm—standardised care that needs no additional labels?
As 2024 comes to a close, our reflections from the Australasian Forum on Person-Centered Value-Based Health Care highlight the crucial role healthcare commissioners play in turning aspiration into standard practice.
Here, we explore how commissioners can ensure their services are truly person-centered, aligned with Value-Based Healthcare (VBHC) principles, and designed for lasting impact.
As 2024 comes to a close, our reflections from the Australasian Forum on Person-Centered Value-Based Health Care highlight the crucial role healthcare commissioners play in turning aspiration into standard practice.
Here, we explore how commissioners can ensure their services are truly person-centered, aligned with Value-Based Healthcare (VBHC) principles, and designed for lasting impact.
Trust, Respect, and Alignment: Foundations of Person-Centered Care
At the core of person-centered care are three foundational principles: trust, respect, and alignment of incentives.
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- Trust: Involve patients in decision-making and ensure their voices are heard. Building trust requires consistent, open engagement throughout the care journey.
- Respect: See care through the patient’s eyes. As Professor Willem Jan Bos shared at the Forum, minimising clinical regret involves keeping patients engaged at every stage.
- Alignment of Incentives: Systems that align incentives with patient outcomes drive behaviours that improve care. Zoe Warner, from the Victorian Government Department of Health, emphasised the importance of incentives that motivate both providers and patients to pursue shared goals.
What Do Patients Actually Want? Asking the Fundamental Question
One of the simplest yet most critical questions remains: What do patients actually want?
This question is often overlooked in the complexity of healthcare systems. Shifting the focus from what is convenient to what genuinely improves lives is essential. To achieve this:
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- Use tools like Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) and engagement strategies to capture patient priorities.
- Design services that actively listen and respond to patients’ needs.
By doing so, commissioners ensure that activities across the healthcare system reflect the values of those it serves, improving both experience and outcomes.
Leveraging AI and Technology: Supporting Proactive Care
AI and technology present opportunities to enhance person-centered care by:
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- Streamlining patient feedback loops by integrating user-friendly platforms that collect and analyse data efficiently, ensuring patient input is continuously captured and acted upon. This creates a dynamic feedback system that identifies gaps, highlights successes, and accelerates improvements.
- Predicting patient needs and enabling proactive interventions through AI-driven analytics that identify patterns in patient behaviour, risk factors, and care utilisation. By anticipating needs, commissioners can allocate resources more effectively, deploy targeted support, and intervene earlier to prevent deterioration.
- Empowering providers with real-time, data-driven insights, allowing them to personalise care pathways, monitor patient progress, and respond swiftly to emerging issues. With accessible dashboards and predictive models, providers can make informed decisions that align with both patient priorities and broader system goals.
However, interoperability challenges must not become barriers. As seen in Wales, adopting a Value-Based Healthcare model with practical solutions—like simple spreadsheets—demonstrates that progress need not wait for perfect systems.
The key is to ensure technology empowers patients. AI should enable active participation in their care journey, not reduce them to passive recipients.
From Aspirational to Standard: Dignity, Equity and Value
Commissioners must embed person-centered and value-based principles into the very fabric of service delivery. Care that respects individual dignity, prioritises equity, and delivers measurable value should be the standard, not an exception.
To achieve this:
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- Reshape incentives to reflect patient priorities and desired outcomes.
- Invest in cultural safety to ensure care is equitable and inclusive.
- Build systems that anticipate patient needs and reflect their values.
Conclusion: A Future Where Care as Standard is the Norm
Insights from the Australasian Forum underscore a vital shift: person-centered and value-based care should no longer be seen as aspirational goals. Instead, they must define standard practice.
Commissioners have the tools and responsibility to design systems that:
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- Respect patient dignity and autonomy.
- Align incentives with outcomes that matter.
- Leverage technology for proactive, equitable care delivery.
Insights from the Australasian Forum underscore a vital shift: person-centered and value-based care should no longer be seen as aspirational goals. Instead, they must define standard practice.
Commissioners have the tools and responsibility to design systems that:
-
- Respect patient dignity and autonomy.
- Align incentives with outcomes that matter.
- Leverage technology for proactive, equitable care delivery.
By embedding these principles into every stage of service design and delivery, we move closer to a future where Care as Standard becomes the way things are done.
Ready to design healthcare services that put patient experience and outcomes at the centre?
Discover how our Commissioning Framework 2.0 can help you deliver person-centered care as the new standard.
Get in touch today to learn more.
