You Get What You Pay For

KPMG Report Finds Integrated Healthcare Delivers Better Patient Care, Reduced Costs

TORONTO, Nov. 5, 2012 /CNW/ - A new KPMG Healthcare report launched today demonstrates that improving the quality of service to patients makes healthcare less expensive. Titled Contracting Value: Shifting Paradigms, the report found that, under the current healthcare model, sub-optimal patient care generates more revenues for healthcare providers while efficient high-quality care generates fewer revenues.

"In today's healthcare systems, we tend to pay for piecemeal activities, or for a building or an organization; we are paying individual providers that will do their best on a small piece of the work around a patient's problem," says Mark Britnell, Chairman and Partner, Global Health Practice, co-author of the report and a partner with KPMG in the UK. "We do not pay for the integration of all these individuals' activities and efforts, nor do we pay for the results that all this work delivers."

Healthcare systems can deliver better patient outcomes and reduce costs by defining, measuring and rewarding the delivery of quality care, Britnell continued.

"To patients, the current healthcare systems often appear fragmented and poorly coordinated," said Britnell. "For the most part, this is because our health systems tend to reward providers for delivering disjointed and non-coordinated services which - all too often - result in sub-optimal quality, waste and frustration on the part of the patient and the healthcare professionals, and reduced value for the payers."

KPMG's report examines the root causes of sub-optimal healthcare around the world and identifies three core principles that - when taken together - demonstrate a clear path to driving value from healthcare systems: integrated care must be the new "unit" of payment, meaningful outcomes must be defined and measured, and adding value must be rewarded.

"We believe that these three core principles, when grasped fully in their synergy, bring this Holy Grail within reach," says Janet Davidson, Global Center of Excellence for Healthcare, KPMG in Canada. "However, one of the greatest challenges will be in creating the right environment to encourage integrated care delivery, and that will require systems to overcome deeply entrenched ways of working and institutional silos that currently stand as fundamental barriers to better patient care."

By examining a range of existing health systems around the world, the report clearly lays out the steps that must be taken to re-align the provision of care to deliver better patient outcomes, reduced costs and greater value for money.  The report also provides a number of lessons from leading health providers and illustrates its core findings through real and practical examples rooted in actual patient care scenarios.

For a copy of the report, Contracting Value: Shifting Paradigm: please visit kpmg.com/healthcare or [email protected]

KPMG's Global Healthcare Practice

Healthcare systems around the globe are facing more complex challenges than ever.  KPMG is committed to providing long term support to our clients as they tackle these challenges and seek to transform the way that healthcare is provided.

With deep industry experience, insight and technical support, KPMG firms are among the leaders in delivering a broad range of audit, tax and advisory services to meet the unique needs of healthcare policy-makers, providers and payers.

KPMG has more than 3, 000 dedicated professionals in our healthcare network, with skills in strategy development, cost optimization, financial management, clinical performance improvement, market development, tax planning, mergers and acquisitions, commercialization and organizational development. We have one of the largest, best equipped and most experienced healthcare advisory teams with offices in 36 countries. For more information, please contact us at [email protected]

About KPMG International

KPMG is a global network of professional firms providing Audit, Tax and Advisory services.  We operate in 152 countries and have 145,000 people working in member firms around the world.  The independent member firms of the KPMG network are affiliated with KPMG International Cooperative ("KPMG International"), a Swiss entity.  Each KPMG firm is a legally distinct and separate entity and describes itself as such.

SOURCE: KPMG International

Jennifer Samuel
Head of External Communications, Global Industries
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Sarah Shelest
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