Our Aim
Our research collaboration is delivering new knowledge on value-based payment models to support more effective, efficient and equitable healthcare, with a focus on cancer.
Value-based healthcare aims to improve health outcomes relative to costs through: integrated care pathways, including prevention and rehabilitation; reduced unwarranted variation in outcomes; improved utilisation of scarce healthcare resources; and rewarding providers for improvements in actual patient outcomes.
How providers are paid is a powerful strategy to support value-based healthcare. Financial incentives embedded in traditional payment models such as fee-for-service have encouraged providers (hospitals, doctors, nurses and others) to behave in ways that run counter to patient value.
There is growing international experience of innovative payment models to encourage behaviour that supports value-based healthcare, but we do not have evidence for the best system for Australia.
We know that evidence-based clinical care can improve health outcomes and evidence-based Optimal Cancer Care Pathways have been developed and adopted in Australia. However, the type of care patients actually receive is high variable, and the evidence consistently shows that cancer survival is affected by where you live and your household income.
Our research collaboration is focussing on how payment models can be designed to ensure financial incentives are aligned with high-value cancer care, and are acceptable to patients, health professionals and funders.
The NHMRC Centre for Excellence in Value-based Payments in Cancer Care is a multi-disciplinary research collaboration of economists and policy analysts, clinicians, government agencies, health insurance experts, cancer control agencies, and consumer representatives.
The collaboration is based at the Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation, UTS and includes, University of Sydney, University of New South Wales, Independent Hospital Pricing Authority, Cancer Australia, Cancer Council NSW, Cancer Institute NSW, and the Australian Health Service Alliance.