title: Update on value-based medicine.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To update concepts in Value-Based Medicine, especially in view of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act assures that some variant of Value-Based Medicine cost-utility analysis will play a key role in the healthcare system. It identifies the highest quality care, thereby maximizing the most efficacious use of healthcare resources and empowering patients and physicians.Standardization is critical for the creation and acceptance of a Value-Based Medicine, cost-utility analysis, information system, since 27 million different input variants can go into a cost-utility analysis. Key among such standards is the use of patient preferences (utilities), as patients best understand the quality of life associated with their health states. The inclusion of societal costs, versus direct medical costs alone, demonstrates that medical interventions are more cost effective and, in many instances, provide a net financial return-on-investment to society referent to the direct medical costs expended.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Value-Based Medicine provides a standardized methodology, integrating critical, patient, quality-of-life preferences, and societal costs, to allow the highest quality, most cost-effective care. Central to Value-Based Medicine is the concept that all patients deserve the interventions that provide the greatest patient value (improvement in quality of life and/or length of life).
authors.affiliation: Wills Eye Institute bJefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, PA, USA. mbrown@valuebasedmedicine.com
authors.forename: Melissa M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.forename: Gary C
authors.initials: GC
authors.lastname: Brown
mesh_terms: D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000191:economics*; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine / Q000191:economics; D017048:Health Care Costs; D006801:Humans; D058991:Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; D011787:Quality of Health Care / Q000592:standards*; D011788:Quality of Life