How Digital Therapeutics (DTx) are enabling the move to Value-Based Healthcare

by Ana Díaz-Roncero and Tarek Milla, April 12, 2023

Over the past few years, we have been seeing a tendency of the healthcare system to evolve from the traditional model toward Value-Based Healthcare. This new model is centered on a medical practice that is based on patient health outcomes, instead of on the number of services and medical interventions provided. Value-Based Healthcare includes elements that go beyond the purely clinical aspect, for example, the patient’s quality of life, his or her experience during the provision of care, etc., resulting in an improvement of the patient’s health and status in broader terms, directly impacting the efficiency of the system.

In this way, all the participants in this healthcare model focus on the improvement of health outcomes, centered on the patient, with the goal of offering better care to individuals, improving strategies for management of population health, and reducing healthcare costs, as mentioned in Forbes. This is transforming the way in which healthcare is provided and its performance is measured, as well as the way in which the value of a therapy is evaluated. All this is driving the transformation of the business models of pharmaceutical and health technology companies.

With reference to this new way of evaluating a therapy’s value, in the Value-Based Healthcare model the providers and companies will be paid for their treatments and products as a function of patient outcomes, incentivizing those that provide greater value in terms of effectiveness, experience, quality of care, efficiency, and so on. These outcomes may be obtained through pharmacological treatments, healthcare procedures and/or products, including Digital Therapeutics or DTx.

In the case of Digital Therapeutics (medical interventions offered by means of software products either as a stand-alone or in combination with a treatment, in order to prevent, control, or treat a medical condition or disease), these are beginning to play a more important role in the healthcare sector and, specifically, as mentioned by the Digital Therapeutics Alliance, can be a useful tool to provide value-based care because they enable the provider to:

• Personalize the therapy, adapting it to the needs of each patient, disease, and treatment, thus improving the patient’s health and/or quality of life, and increasing patient satisfaction.
• Obtain, record, and use patient responses to carry out modifications during the treatment to refine the procedures, thus optimizing the outcomes.
• Help reduce the cost of care by improving the provider’s efficiency and the patient’s accessibility to medical care, resulting in better health and less use of healthcare services.

Because of all of this, at Persei vivarium we are working on the creation of innovative DTx that complement existing therapies and/or expand the portfolio of services of companies in the healthcare sector, thanks to our extensive experience in the creation of Digital Health projects and the generation of evidence.

Ultimately, with the surge in these value-based models, we are entering a new phase of healthcare in which it is probable that our methods for treating and preventing chronic diseases will change significantly. During this change, Digital Therapeutics will provide high value in the current care model as they offer care that is more coordinated, appropriate, and effective, thus increasing patient satisfaction, reducing healthcare costs, and improving health outcomes.

#DigitalTherapeutics #DTx #ValueBasedHealthcare