Patients, healthcare providers, policymakers need to turn their attention to value based health solutions
KARACHI: Decisions regarding healthcare are often taken by patients, caregivers, doctors and even policymakers on the basis of price of medication alone. There is a tendency to look at the cost of treating a disease instead of looking at the cost of NOT treating it. The latter is far greater with wide and far reaching impact.
Too often, medication cost is seen in isolation. The more prudent method would be to also consider issues related to efficiency, effectiveness, value and medium-to long-term repercussions. The cost of the medicine is often just the tip of the iceberg ie the clearly visible part of the healthcare expenditure. What may be overlooked are the underlying or invisible risks of complications and their huge associated financial and socio-economic costs, for example, missing work, missing school, impact on productivity. Complications of any illness place significant financial burden on the patient in the way of laboratory tests, hospital visits and/or hospitalisation. Similarly, it strains already stretched public sector healthcare facilities and budgets which could be utilised to greater purpose for the provision of treatment to a greater percentage of the population.
Patients, healthcare providers, policymakers need to turn their attention to value based health solutions. In a country like Pakistan that is struggling to provide basic healthcare to the population, judicious use of budgets takes on even greater importance than in the developed world. The acute shortage of beds in hospitals could be addressed, at least in part, through the application of proper health economics analyses which could reduce traffic to already overcrowded hospitals and healthcare units. Simply put this means a penny spent smartly today would save a bigger amount tomorrow.
The government looking to expand the scope and reach of the Health Card and Health Insurance would be well-advised to consider a cost effectiveness model evaluating direct cost against efficacy. This could result in much-needed standardisation of care across socioeconomic boundaries.
Rehan Zia
Published in The Express Tribune, February 5th, 2019.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.
