Ana Paula Etges internationally recognized for strategies for more sustainable health care systems
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School of Technology professor, Dr. Ana Paula Etges, has an article published in the NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery, of the The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), one of the most relevant scientific journals in the world. The research was recognized for the technological advances in the implementation of health management strategies based on Value-based Healthcare (VBHC). The concepts of VBHC were brought forth by Harvard’s Business School (USA), in 2010. The research group at the Institute for Evaluation of Health Technologies (IATS/INCT – CNPq) and Etges have been working together and with other European groups to implement these concepts into the public and supplementary health care system of Brazil.
NEJM Catalyst has been the leading source of scientific, applied VBHC advances and health care management innovation in the world. In this sense, Etges believes that for the group, having the study published in this journal earns Brazil some great reputation as it generates scientific evidence and strategic health care management solutions for the world.
According to Ana Paula, the principle of VBHC is to focus on the real needs of patients and generate the best possible outcomes for the population’s health with the existing available resources. The article can be understood as one of the advances for the implementation of HBV, as it proposes an automated technology-based solution that allows the use of real-life data on health outcomes and costs, to better guide clinical, assistance and operational managers in their decisions.
Ana Paula Etges / Photo: personal archive
Ana Paula’s group studies ischaemic stroke to propose a solution with other initiatives such as Rede Brasil AVC and the World Stroke Organization. Together, the groups employ the findings of the study on the evaluation of the cost of therapeutic strategies for strokes in Latin America. The ultimate goal is to propose indicators to certify stroke centers around the world. The solution developed makes Brazil and the group of researchers references in a solution that allows the analysis of Patient Reported Outcomes (PROMs) and costs measured with a Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing (TDABC).
The recently-published article is the result of multi-handed research on the need for a transformation in the global health care system for its own sustainability. Dr. Carisi Polanczyk and Dr. Sheila Martins from UFRGS’ School of Medicine also served as coordinators of the study. Additionally, a group of researchers with multiple expertise joined forces for the project. These include researchers from PUCRS’ School of Medicine; UFRGS’ Data Sciences program; Harvard Business School (USA); and the Portuguese company of smart health care services Prológica.
The way Ana Paula sees it, “the international action involving Brazil, Portugal and the United States in this study has been very important for the findings of the study to meet the needs of each health care system and to be more easily replicated around the world”.
