The Patient Priority: Solve Health Care's Value Crisis by Measuring and Delivering Outcomes That Matter to Patients

From the thought leaders at Boston Consulting Group come lessons on how leading health systems around the world are delivering patient-centered, value-based care by focusing on the health outcomes that matter to patients.

To address the growing crises confronting the global health sector, health systems need to deliver better health outcomes to patients for the money spent, an approach known as value-based health care. Contrary to traditional approaches to health-systems reform that emphasize cost containment, value-based health care shifts the focus to continuous improvement in the outcomes delivered to patients. Systematically measuring, tracking, and improving health outcomes over time can have a transformative effect, enabling health systems to:

• deliver better patient outcomes and overall population health more consistently
• identify and disseminate best-practice diagnoses and treatments more rapidly
• control total health-care costs more effectively because unnecessary procedures are eliminated, expensive complications occur less frequently, and repeat treatments are avoided
• rebuild the trust and motivation of health professionals by aligning system performance goals with professional purpose

The only way for the health care sector to sustainably contain costs and fulfill its mission is by putting the patient and the delivery of outcomes that matter to patients at the center of the industry’s efforts and by aligning incentives around the continuous improvement of health outcomes in a cost-effective manner.

Designed by thought leaders at Boston Consulting Group as a practical step-by-step guide for clinicians, payers, policymakers, and other industry stakeholders, The Patient Priority features powerful case studies of leading value-based innovators ―both public and private, as well as from both high- and low-income countries―that are taking the concept of value-based health care from theory to practice. The book also presents a detailed road map for the comprehensive value-based transformation of national health systems. This book is an indispensable tool to launch a new era of patient-centered innovation, unlock value in health care, and bring about step-function improvements in productivity, performance, and population health.

Stefan Larsson, MD, PhD, is a senior advisor to the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and founder of the firm’s health care payers and providers sector and its health systems sector. He cofounded the International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement (ICHOM), a nonprofit working to create global standards for measuring health outcomes, and he serves as a fellow on the Health and Healthcare team of the World Economic Forum. From 2016 through 2018, he led a BCG team that worked with the World Economic Forum on its Value in Healthcare program. That initiative led to the 2019 launch of the Global Coalition for Value in Healthcare, a forum-sponsored public-private collaboration to accelerate the transition to value-based health care in health systems throughout the world.

Jennifer Clawson is a partner and director in BCG’s Madrid office and global head of the firm’s Center for Value in Health Care. She has worked with both private- and public-sector organizations to create new value-based business models and evaluate strategic opportunities to improve health outcomes.

Josh Kellar, PhD, is a partner and managing director in BCG’s Chicago office, leader of the firm’s Global Scientist Network of more than 500 MDs and PhDs, and coleader of its medical response to Covid-19. He works with clients throughout the US health care industry, specializing in advanced analytics, value-based care delivery, and the application of digital technologies.

Robert Howard is a former senior editor at Harvard Business Review and MIT Technology Review. He has been collaborating for more than a decade with BCG on the topics of value-based and health-system transformation.