From the Margins to the Mainstream

Abstract

Healthcare system performance needs information on cost and revenue of care because of the rising healthcare costs. Empowering clinicians with clinical costing information is central to the success of containing costs. This information holds clinical data linkage unifying clinical, financial and administrative datasets, and seems to facilitate the spending of scarce health care resources in a way that produces the biggest difference in clinical outcomes. This chapter looks at the methodology and processes of clinical costing and its potential applications to facilitate the delivery of value-based healthcare, which confers quality care at lowest unit cost. Policy implications would be purchasing value-based healthcare, based mostly on quality of care after removing avoidable costs for inefficiency and poor quality. Clinician participation in the clinical costing is the key to success, because clinicians will be informed of the options available to choose the most value-based healthcare, which will, in turn, take care of the tight healthcare budget. Yet, this method of clinical costing is still at the margins.