Unlocking digital and therapeutic innovations in a value-based way is key to sustainability

In the healthcare system we face many different stakeholders with different roles and responsibilities, however, they all share one common goal – to put patients back into their normal life as much as possible. This goal is a sustainable health care system that patients can count on, and e-health and value based healthcare play a key role here.

In the world of limited resources in the health care system, both human and financial, and with growing patients and societies demands, and technological and therapeutic innovations, sustainability in healthcare needs accelerators.

We need to find ways to increase the patient value delivered at a lower cost per patient. Impossible? Luckily not. There are several things we can do to achieve that goal.

To ensure a sustainable health care system we need to 1. organize health care more efficiently, by integrating e-health on a larger scale,2. leverage the power of therapeutic innovations, and 3. financing healthcare through value-based payment schemes. When we leverage the passion and capabilities of all stakeholders in healthcare: patients, healthcare professionals, policy makers, payers and innovative pharmaceutical companies, this is possible.   

Let us dive deeper into the three points mentioned.

E-health drives better clinical and psychological outcomes at lower cost with fewer health care professionals’ engagement, those HCPs involved can be coordinated in a more efficient way. By analyzing data points generated by e-health solutions (registries!) we can also optimize treatment pathways and guidelines further improving outcomes and health care system efficiencies. So e-health has the potential to improve both the effectiveness and the efficiency of healthcare. In addition, digital health has proven to shorten diagnostic journeys, years of waiting for the right treatment to start can be saved as we have also demonstrated at Takeda by using AI to diagnose rare diseases immunodeficiencies. Time saved by leveraging digital health technologies will help address the challenge of insufficient health care professionals and also allow for more time during patient-HCP interactions.

More and more technologies that can cure or treat more effectively will become available and through that provide huge patient value. Some even with less health care professional time investment over the course of the patient journey. Examples are gene and stem cell therapies, CAR-T and CAR-NK. What almost seems science fiction now, will be reality a decade from now. This will be extremely relevant for example in rare diseases where today 95% of patients do not have any treatment. As Takeda, we are committed to delivering life-transforming therapies for these patients who do not have any or have limited treatment options.  Therefore the question is how to match the needs with current and future resources, how to match the possibilities of science for an aging population with more healthcare needs, to the resources available?

That is where value-based, or also named outcomes-based, healthcare (VBHC) comes in. VBHC has shown in many countries to deliver more patient value at a lower cost per patient, by funding the tools, treatments, and procedures that provided tangible outcomes for patients. The already mentioned e-health with the registries will be a key enabler of this.

Understanding that we are all eager to reach the same goal is the first step to creating a health care system truly concentrated on patients – a value-based healthcare system. How to build these partnership, while all systems stakeholders have their own interests and frustrations?  By dialogue and reciprocity.

During dialogue all stakeholders in healthcare can provide their insights into the root cause and possible solutions, so we can concentrate on solutions and tools that can address the challenges we face today and will face tomorrow.  

Understanding that we have one goal, and understanding mutual needs and limitations will allow us to find common solutions. Together we can ensure a better health for patients and a brighter future for society.

Takada Pharma

C-APROM/PL/CORP/0006, 08/2022