It’s Important to Have Many Voices in the Value Conversation

Value means different things to different stakeholders, which is why it’s good to see so many voices engaging in this important discussion. Value assessment has the potential to have a tremendous impact on patient treatment decisions, as well as on coverage and reimbursement decisions. For this reason, we need to involve all stakeholders, especially patients, to give us a broader view of what value means to them and to ensure that we do not limit patients’ ability to get the right treatments for them.
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As our health care system shifts further from one based on the volume of services provided to the value of those services, many health care stakeholders are taking a closer look at how to assess value.

Value means different things to different stakeholders, which is why it’s good to see so many voices engaging in this important discussion. Value assessment has the potential to have a tremendous impact on patient treatment decisions, as well as on coverage and reimbursement decisions. For this reason, we need to involve all stakeholders, especially patients, to give us a broader view of what value means to them and to ensure that we do not limit patients’ ability to get the right treatments for them.

Given that there are many viewpoints, it’s clear that one value assessment framework will not fit all purposes for all end users. And as the field of value assessment continues to evolve, we’ll need to make sure that we can identify best practices and methods to guide the development of different frameworks so that they become useful tools that can meaningfully assess value.

To start this process, earlier this year the National Pharmaceutical Council developed Guiding Practices for Patient-Centered Value Assessment, which provide an important perspective about measuring value and complement other efforts currently underway within the patient and health care community.

These efforts include work by the National Health Council, which developed a Patient-Centered Value Model Rubric to ensure that patients, family caregivers, and patient advocacy organizations are involved through every step of the framework development process. The Rubric also outlines specific factors that frameworks should take into consideration, such as patient outcomes and subpopulation differences.

Another effort being led by the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) and the American Society of Health Economists is focused on “identifying and discussing key methodological and process issues in defining and applying value frameworks to health care resource allocation issues.” The two organizations also plan to “convene a Special Task Force that will collaborate to produce a white paper that advises on the appropriate definition and use of high-quality value frameworks.”

Like NPC, these organizations recognize the importance of getting value assessment frameworks right so that we do not limit patient access to the care they need. Tomorrow, the National Health Council will participate in a webinar with two other organizations—Faster Cures and Avalere—to talk about this important issue, and we encourage you to listen in on the conversation.

Need background on value assessment frameworks? Check out NPC’s Current Landscape: Value Assessment Frameworks, which compares the main frameworks currently in development, our Guiding Practices for Patient-Centered Value Assessment, and our blog series exploring various aspects of value assessment.