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FCT approves "Portuguese Value-Based Healthcare", collaborative lab of NOVA University Lisbon

The Lab focus on innovation to monitor health outcomes and support patient literacy.

Saúde

The Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) approved the Portuguese Value-Based Healthcare collaborative laboratory, being the only project in the health area to be approved. With the goal of achieving better health and better attendance at lower costs, this laboratory focuses on the innovation in technologies to objectively monitor health outcomes and support patient literacy, whose perception of clinical outcomes plays a key role.

When, around the world, health systems deal with sustainability issues, in particular financial matters, while at the same time seeking to achieve greater efficiency and quality, especially in terms of care, NOVA University Lisbon suggests a new approach to health, inspired by Harvard Professor Michael Porter: Value-Based Healthcare, that is, the benefit-cost ratio. This will lead to the remuneration of health based on the result obtained by a treated patient, not the number of procedures to obtain this result.

The laboratory is the result of a consortium between NOVA University Lisbon, José de Mello Saúde, Vodafone and Fraunhofer - Portugal, with the support of the Central Hospital of Central Lisbon and the International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement (ICHOM), in an effort of approximating academia to companies and to society - from science to industry. NOVA University Lisbon involves several of its schools in this initiative.

In practice, the laboratory will allow to monitor patients at a distance and through technology. The patients’ clinical results are analyzed allowing to evaluate the impact of interventions and their cost-effectiveness. Another dimension will be the possibility of comparing and embenchmarking several therapeutic options for a given disease and based on the benefit-cost relationships, in order to make choices.

The collaborative laboratory will be responsible for including these methodologies in clinical training and will seek to innovate through the development of new technologies with a real impact on health practices, generating spin-off companies as well as new business sectors in the healthcare industry.

From a long-term perspective, it will be an international reference for the implementation of Value-Based Healthcare.