Patient-reported outcome and experience measures for peripheral venous catheters: a scoping review protocol

Healthcare delivery is currently experiencing a significant change from what was traditionally a volume-based model, to one that is based on the value of healthcare delivery (Squitieri et al, 2017). The aim of a value-based healthcare (VBHC) delivery model is to improve patient safety, quality of care and cost-efficiency of interventions (Elf et al, 2017) by: effectively engaging consumers (Wilson et al, 2016); improving care coordination (Chen et al, 2013); and, endeavouring to reduce purchasing costs (Haywood, 2010).

VBHC considers the benefits of care to patients relative to the costs of achieving these (eg staff, consumables). At a policy level, this involves a cost-utility analysis which, while more complex than standard economic analysis, has been adopted as core business for many healthcare systems, due to a high rate of healthcare inflation, in the context of finite resources (Brown et al, 2003). At the foundation of VBHC delivery is evidence-based medicine, which is the implementation of care that is supported by high-level evidence, carried out by skilled/expert clinicians, taking into account patient values and the perceived value of care provided (Brown et al, 2003; Svet al, 2000). For example, a high-cost procedure that demonstrates little benefit is not an efficient use of funds, while cost-saving poor-quality care is similarly inefficient (Porter and Teisberg, 2006). In practice, this has led to Value-Based Insurance Designs (relevant for primarily privatized health systems), which are aimed at minimizing both under-use and over-use of healthcare systems (Fendrick et al, 2010). Public health systems have similarly begun to implement this concept of value in their national systems, such as use in the assessment of pharmaceuticals prior to insurance (public or private) subsidization (Claxton et al, 2008).