Abstract

We welcome the publication by Walraven et al that highlights the similarities between cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) and value-based healthcare (VBHC) and proposes a method to integrate VBHC into CEA through a so-called VBHC quality-adjusted life-year (QALY). We fully support the authors in their view that CEA and VBHC can learn from one another. On the one hand, VBHC may learn from the well-established field of CEA in terms of study designs and analysis. Requirements for the design and analysis of economic evaluations scaffold the validity and generalizability of results, as should also be the case for VBHC to be used as a robust methodology for comparing the value of treatments or care providers. On the other hand, CEA may learn from the patient-centeredness in outcome measurement in the emerging field of VBHC because the hardline CEA methodology might not capture all patient-relevant aspects of health or wellbeing.