The Think & ACT for Value -a public-private platform that seeks to transform our health system toward  Value-Based Health Care (VBHC)- kicked-off today. The initiative, co-led and coordinated by EIT Health Spain -the Spanish hub of the largest network of health innovators in Europe, EIT Health– headquartered in the Barcelona Science Park, is to improve outcomes for patients and contribute to economic sustainability of our National Health System.

The World Health Organisation and the OECD state that 30% of the resources used in healthcare are wasted on avoidable complications, unnecessary treatments or administrative inefficiencies. In this context, “a state pact is needed to transform the Spanish health system towards Value-Based Health Care (ASBV)”, as stated this morning by experts from Think & ACT for Value, the public-private platform that it brings together different key agents of the healthcare ecosystem in the field of ASBV, and it officially starts today.

In 2006, Porter and Teisberg introduced the VBHC concept as a framework for restructuring healthcare systems around the world, with the primary goal of delivering value to patients. “The paradigm shift proposed by the VBHC is a milestone comparable to that represented at the time by the General Health Act of 1986, which marked the consolidation of the universality, equity and decentralisation of the Spanish health system and shaped the health transfers to the autonomous communities,” says Francesc Iglesias, head of the Office of Support for Innovation and Research at the Catalan Health Institute. “This is a necessary evolution to avoid being stuck in the 20th century and to bring the National Health Service (NHS) into the 21st century”.

“The international movement of the VBHC has an important potential to transform our healthcare system,” says Izabel Alfany, Managing Director of this foundation. “At EIT Health Spain we have put the strength of our structure, in which all the actors in the health system already coexist, at the service of Think & Act for Value, with the idea of being able to act as a driving force for change towards the VBHC”, Alfany is confident.

“The levers driving the VBHC are technological changes, digitalisation, data availability and social changes, with an increasingly ageing population with multipathology and chronicity. It is the very need to maintain the success of the NHS that is driving this transformation,” explains Francesc Iglesias.

Manifesto for the pursuit of Value in Health Care

The experts of Think & Act for Value, with the aim of identifying, connecting, promoting and scaling up all the experience available in Spain and Europe in the field of VBHC, based on national and international experiences, have drawn up a Manifesto with 54 recommendations for decision-makers at national and regional level, healthcare centres, healthcare professionals, patients and industry.

The State Pact called for as a necessary condition for change involves promoting cohesion at the Interterritorial Council level in terms of the evaluation of innovation and technologies by the evaluation agencies. In the experts’ opinion, all agencies should agree that they should be guided by the value for the patient, and that such evaluation should be imperative, so that value guides decision-making in the purchase and adoption of technologies at regional and healthcare organisation level. Such a Pact would also aim to foster the exchange and implementation of best practice both intra- and inter-community, facilitating collaboration and joint learning to progress towards value-based healthcare in all regions.  

Value Radar

Another of the Think & Act for Value actions presented this morning was Value Radar: a detector of good practices in VBHC, which will act as a knowledge generator and facilitator of innovation with impact throughout Spain.

Through a non-competitive call for projects, Think & Act will build a dynamic landscape of value-based innovation for healthcare: projects and innovations identified through this call will be visible on the Think & Act website and in a marketplace tool, where innovators will be able to generate virtual connections. In addition, Think & Act will initiate events to enable face-to-face connections.

The aim of all the platform’s activities, as Izabel Alfany points out, is “on the one hand, to generalise projects and best practices in value-based healthcare; and, on the other, to incubate value-based healthcare projects, so that they become a tangible reality in the NHS”. Think & Act for Value, Alfany adds, “is a platform open to all those agents, organisations and professionals who are willing to commit to making progress in the transformation of our healthcare system”.

» For further information: EIT Health Spain website [+]