Defining Value in Spine Care

Abstract

Spinal disorders are extremely common, debilitating, and costly to the payer and to society as a whole. The rate and cost of various spinal treatments are increasing at an astonishing rate, but it is unclear whether the resulting quality of spinal care is improving. Rather than focusing solely on quality improvement measures or cost-saving measures, there is a recent emphasis on the value of health care. Defining the value of spine care depends on a standardized, accurate method of measuring outcomes and costs. It is important that the outcomes measured are patient centered and that both the outcomes and costs are measured over time with long-term follow-up. The purpose of this article is to review current methods for measuring outcomes and propose a means by which the value of spine care can be more clearly defined.

The Nijmegen Decision Tool for Chronic Low Back Pain. Development of a Clinical Decision Tool for Secondary or Tertiary Spine Care Specialists

“…The backbone of the screening questionnaire consists of Dutch versions of international validated PROMs. To be able to make our future study results comparable and to be able to perform benchmark studies in the future, we selected commonly used PROMs covering those indicators that are treatment outcome-related (functioning in daily activities with ODI, quality of life with SF36 and EQ5D, and pain intensity with NRS) [87]. These PROMs are also used in the Swedish Spine Register (Swespine [www.4S.nu]).…”

The Economics of Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery

“…1 The value of a health care intervention is defined as the quality of the intervention divided by the cost of the intervention measured over time. 1 The value of a health care intervention is defined as the quality of the intervention divided by the cost of the intervention measured over time.…”

“…1 The value of a health care intervention is defined as the quality of the intervention divided by the cost of the intervention measured over time. [1][2][3] Given the increasing demands from an aging population, exponential increases in health care spending, and emerging technologies (including MIS), demonstration of clinical efficacy must be "married" with economic value if resource allocation in the future is to be sustainable. The United States embraces some of the most technologically advanced health care available, including several minimally invasive spinal (MIS) procedures.…”

Economic Performance of Oblique Lateral Lumbar Interbody Fusion (OLLIF) with a Focus on Hospital Throughput Efficiency

“…The trend of shorter LOS for OLLIF surgeries remained consistent when surgeries were stratified and matched for the same number of levels involved (2. [17]. There are even fewer data on the benefits of MI surgeries.…”