Among the variables that influence clinical decisions, laboratory tests are considered to be among the most important and frequently used. The influence of laboratory tests on clinical decisions varies from 56% to 98% for inpatient, emergency department, and outpatient populations. In this scenario, the decision to use one diagnostic test or another may impact directly clinical and economic outcomes. Accurate lab results also have other important implications on, such as frequency of hospitalizations, length of stay, time to discharge, hospital admissions, expenses with pharmaceutical or non-pharmaceutical therapies (e.g. surgical, physical, etc.), further diagnostic procedures, among others. In the current context with significant economic challenges, the rising cost of health care is a major issue for patients, employers, providers and payers. The desire to reduce costs, optimize resources allocation, and increase quality of care is a motivating force forcing to move health care from a fee-for-service to a more value-based outcome model.

Disease Management Programs and Value-based health Care Models aims mainly to improve quality of care and increase efficiency for healthcare systems. Adoption of in-vitro Diagnostic tests (IVD) in the Delivery Care Chain based on the their clinical and economic benefits - and not only on their accuracy (named specificity and sensitivity) - may bring significant value to the whole health care ecosystem. The question is how to design, implement, and track the performance of a Diagnostic Value-Based health care model (VBHC). The clinical and scientific communities have larger experience on treatment Value-Based Health Care models than on diagnostic VBHC. Thus, the Symposium “Accurate Diagnosis enables Value-based Care: improving care & avoiding unnecessary costs” aims to share two real-life experiences where Diagnostic Value-Based health care models were designed, implemented and evaluated. The first experience is a Heart Failure Program from Spain and the second one, a Cervical Cancer Screening Program from Brazil.

The adoption of an IVD test into clinical practice based primarily on added value – as determined by the test´s clinical and economic impacts - are necessary to ensure the quality of patient care, to achieve specific goals and better manage potential downstream costs.