Redefining value in post-COVID-19 healthcare: A perspective

As the world continues its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, one wonders how healthcare will change after the dust settles. In recent years, the concept of value-based healthcare has emerged as healthcare payers and providers attempt to deliver good health outcomes at optimal costs. But as the pandemic has demonstrated, is value in healthcare simply about balancing bedside care quality and cost? There is a need to go beyond this myopic perspective of value and consider how the global reaction to COVID-19 will change stakeholders’ expectations of future healthcare, its delivery and the extent to which society is prepared to invest or trade off to prevent future such crises. This paper discusses new value norms which will emerge, post-pandemic, which go beyond the quality-cost equilibrium, as the definitions of quality and cost are redefined in the context of wider public health and its impact on society.