Measuring Value
"We are developing health care value and cost measurement tools used by front-line clinicians, financial analysts, and executive leaders to align clinical initiatives with UCSF's commitment to high value care."
- Jahan Fahimi, MD, MPH, Measuring Value Initiative Leader

The CHV Measuring Value Initiative is a partnership between front-line practitioners, financial data analysts, and executive stakeholders to build a standardized approach to accurately assess the clinical benefits and cost savings of value-based initiatives at UCSF.


 

The last decade has seen a significant transition in the United States healthcare system towards value-based healthcare. Patients, physicians, hospitals, and health insurers demand higher quality care at a lower price. UCSF Health embraces this new paradigm, recognizing that reduction of waste, improved transparency, and care innovation mean that there can be simultaneous improvements in clinical outcomes with reduced cost.

Broadly speaking, “value” incorporates clinical outcomes and quality with respect to the costs. Both the numerator (outcomes) and denominator (costs) have multiple components – adequately measuring, reporting, and communicating these is a challenge for stakeholders. Successful value measurement will depend on capturing the components through a systematic, comprehensive, and reproducible approach.

The CHV Measuring Value Initiative, in partnership with the UCSF Clinical Innovation Center, started the Value Improvement Project in 2016, a multidisciplinary internal analysis and consultation service aimed at supporting and aiding improvement work throughout UCSF Health. The program’s highlights and early successes include:

  • Advances in leveraging the healthcare cost-accounting system to define patterns of clinical care and identify opportunities for improvement
  • Designing a “cost-of-care calculator” – a method for measuring and understanding the impacts of clinical initiatives
  • Linking front-line clinical improvement work to the financial processes of the healthcare system, including forecasting, budgeting, purchasing, and supply chain management
  • Development of methods to better link clinical and financial data, using novel big-data approaches