title: Value: a framework for radiation oncology.
abstract: In the current health care system, high costs without proportional improvements in quality or outcome have prompted widespread calls for change in how we deliver and pay for care. Value-based health care delivery models have been proposed. Multiple impediments exist to achieving value, including misaligned patient and provider incentives, information asymmetries, convoluted and opaque cost structures, and cultural attitudes toward cancer treatment. Radiation oncology as a specialty has recently become a focus of the value discussion. Escalating costs secondary to rapidly evolving technologies, safety breaches, and variable, nonstandardized structures and processes of delivering care have garnered attention. In response, we present a framework for the value discussion in radiation oncology and identify approaches for attaining value, including economic and structural models, process improvements, outcome measurement, and cost assessment.
authors.affiliation: Sewit Teckie, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY; and Susan A. McCloskey and Michael L. Steinberg, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA.
authors.forename: Sewit
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Teckie
authors.affiliation: Sewit Teckie, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY; and Susan A. McCloskey and Michael L. Steinberg, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA.
authors.forename: Susan A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: McCloskey
authors.affiliation: Sewit Teckie, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY; and Susan A. McCloskey and Michael L. Steinberg, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA. msteinberg@mednet.ucla.edu.
authors.forename: Michael L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Steinberg
mesh_terms: D017048:Health Care Costs; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000191:economics / Q000532:radiotherapy*; D018787:Radiation Oncology / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards*
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