Medical care as a “numbers” game
One of the fundamental problems in modern healthcare is the deep-rooted orientation to processes and accountability by activity, rather than to patient outcomes. The models of funding and evaluation models of operators are often related to the amount of services performed – the number of examinations, interventions and hospitalisations, not to the real added value for the patient’s health status. This leads to a systemic distortion in which economic logic stimulates the accumulation of volume rather than utility.
Paradoxically, within this logic, even high-tech and resource-intensive health systems fail to demonstrate a proportionate improvement in the quality of health outcomes. Measuring these outcomes, especially those which are meaningful to the patient – such as functional recovery, quality of life, or return to normal activity – is underdeveloped, and often absent altogether.
