High value? Fuzzy concept? who gets to decide?

"Some measures are golden, but mostly those that we have tested. We have a responsibility as a profession to challenge this concept without seeing clear evidence that patients benefit from labeling some measures as value. Value and quality are fuzzy concepts. How can one oppose using value and quality? No one opposes the concept, but we all should demand that the implementation of measures does improve patient outcomes. We should all worry." From a blog commentary by Dr. Robert Centor. Yes, we should all worry.

Value and quality have be become buzz words-  to be blended into "value statements" and purported goals .

Classical economists ' notion of value as something imparted into a good by the labor expended in its production was overturned by economists in the late 1800s when Menger and others introduced the idea of  marginal subjective value. The value of a good or service was subjective,that is in the eye of the beholder, and was made "at the margin".The value of the tenth piece of apple pie is less to a person than is the value of the first piece. Great effort and artistic skill might be expended in the production of an artistically beautiful pogo stick but labeling it a high value product would not  bring about large sales of such a product. Few potential consumers would value such a product.

Marx 's labor theory of value is  resurrected in the payment system  for medicare "The doc fix" carried that archaic misconception  further. The Medicare payment scheme contains elements likely to be admired by the old time Soviet Union central planners.

Third party payers embrace the notion of high value medical care . The words quality and high value are  loose, vague and indeterminate  but seem to have considerable rhetorical value . They are found to a degree making them worthless in myriads of value and missions statements of various organizations whose actual activities and goals have nothing to do with those statements.

Some measures are golden, but mostly those that we have tested. We have a responsibility as a profession to challenge this concept without seeing clear evidence that patients benefit from labeling some measures as value. Value and quality are fuzzy concepts. How can one oppose using value and quality? No one opposes the concept, but we all should demand that the implementation of measures does improve patient outcomes. We should all worry.

Sha

- See more at: http://www.medrants.com/archives/8118#comments

Some measures are golden, but mostly those that we have tested. We have a responsibility as a profession to challenge this concept without seeing clear evidence that patients benefit from labeling some measures as value. Value and quality are fuzzy concepts. How can one oppose using value and quality? No one opposes the concept, but we all should demand that the implementation of measures does improve patient outcomes. We should all worry.

Sha

- See more at: http://www.medrants.com/archives/8118#comments

Some measures are golden, but mostly those that we have tested. We have a responsibility as a profession to challenge this concept without seeing clear evidence that patients benefit from labeling some measures as value. Value and quality are fuzzy concepts. How can one oppose using value and quality? No one opposes the concept, but we all should demand that the implementation of measures does improve patient outcomes. We should all worry.

Sha

- See more at: http://www.medrants.com/archives/8118#comments