Skip to main content

PERSPECTIVE article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Policy
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1484709

Value-based care as a solution to resolve the open debate on public healthcare outsourcing in Europe: what do the available data say?

Provisionally accepted
Cristina Caramés Cristina Caramés 1Javier Arcos Javier Arcos 2Bernadette Pfang Bernadette Pfang 2Ion Cristóbal Ion Cristóbal 1*Juan A. Álvaro Juan A. Álvaro 1
  • 1 Quirónsalud Healthcare Network, Madrid, Spain
  • 2 University Hospital Fundación Jiménez Díaz, Madrid, Madrid, Spain

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Controversy surrounds the current debate regarding the effects of outsourcing health services, as recent studies claim that increased outsourcing leads to reduced costs at the expense of worse patient outcomes. The goal of the value-based model is to enable healthcare systems to create more value for patients, and evidence points to improvements in public health outcomes, patient experience, and health expenditure in systems incorporating components of value-based healthcare. Some emerging evidence indicates promising results for outsourced hospitals which follow a value-based model of healthcare delivery. Although additional future studies are still needed to confirm these benefits, value-based healthcare merits discussion as a new perspective on the public versus private management debate. In fact, we argue that outsourcing to valuebased health providers could represent a valid alternative for public health management, encouraging greater competition within the healthcare sector while ensuring quality of care for both public and private sectors.

    Keywords: Healthcare quality, outsourcing, value-based healthcare, Patient outcomes, Clinical Management, patient experience

    Received: 22 Aug 2024; Accepted: 11 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Caramés, Arcos, Pfang, Cristóbal and Álvaro. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Ion Cristóbal, Quirónsalud Healthcare Network, Madrid, Spain

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.