Every cedi invested in Ghana’s healthcare must deliver measurable patient outcomes – CHAG Executive Director.

The Executive Director of the Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG), Dr Peter Yeboah, is demanding greater accountability for healthcare spending, insisting that every cedi invested in the sector must translate into improved patient outcomes and protection against the financial burden of illness.

He argues that Ghana must move beyond measuring healthcare performance by the number of patients treated or services delivered and focus on whether those investments are actually improving people's health.

Speaking to JoyNews on the sidelines of Queen Máxima of the Netherlands' visit to Manna Mission Hospital in Accra, Dr Yeboah said the country must prioritise value for money in healthcare delivery to ensure that limited resources produce measurable benefits for patients.

"For me, what I take from this is that every cedi invested in the health sector should lead to improved patient health outcomes. It should provide protection against the financial costs of ill health," he said.

"It should also strengthen the sustainability of service providers, CHAG, the Ghana Health Service and all other actors, and most importantly, advance equitable access to healthcare services."

Dr Yeboah maintained that increasing healthcare spending or expanding the number of services provided would achieve little if patients continued to suffer preventable complications and face substantial financial difficulties when seeking treatment.

"The key paradigm shift today, if you ask me to summarise, is a shift from the volume of healthcare services to the value we derive from them. We should not be too fixated on the number or volume of services people utilise. Rather, we should ask ourselves who is benefiting and what real benefits are coming out of those services," he explained.

Dr Yeboah believes the adoption of Value-Based Care could help address inefficiencies in Ghana's healthcare system by placing greater emphasis on treatment outcomes, patient experiences and the efficient use of resources.

Unlike conventional payment arrangements that largely focus on the services provided, Value-Based Care seeks to measure whether healthcare interventions produce meaningful improvements in patients' health.

The approach is being piloted through a collaboration involving CHAG, the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) and PharmAccess Ghana.

The initiative combines hospital consultations with continuous patient monitoring, including the use of the NkwaPlus digital healthcare platform, which allows patients living with hypertension and diabetes to receive follow-up care from home.

Dr Yeboah believes the model offers an opportunity to improve the quality of healthcare while reducing the financial burden of preventable illnesses.

"Value-based healthcare is now acting as a vital bridge between service provision on one side and improved patient outcomes, quality and efficiency on the other," he explained.

He said the approach must also improve clinical performance, patient experiences and the financial sustainability of healthcare providers.

The implementation of the Value-Based Care initiative, which incorporates NkwaPlus, has recorded improvements in hypertension management among participating patients.

The proportion of patients whose blood pressure was under control increased from 50 per cent at the beginning of the pilot to 57.1 per cent after 12 months.

More than 90 per cent of participating patients also indicated that they would recommend the service.

The results provide an example of how continuous patient monitoring and coordinated care can contribute to improved treatment outcomes.

The initiative is particularly relevant to patients living with chronic conditions such as hypertension, where poor disease management can lead to strokes, hospitalisation and expensive medical treatment.

However, the pilot has not yet introduced direct payments to healthcare providers based on patient outcomes.

Instead, the NHIA and its partners have been using non-financial incentives, including early reimbursement of claims and early re-credentialing, to encourage healthcare providers to prioritise treatment outcomes.

The longer-term objective is to develop reimbursement arrangements that reward measurable improvements in patients' health.

Dr Yeboah believes such reforms could help healthcare providers become more accountable for the resources they receive.

"Payers must also have differentiated payment mechanisms that ensure providers do not have a perverse incentive to focus only on the volume of services, but also on the value derived from them," he stated.

Dr Yeboah also described Queen Máxima's visit to Manna Mission Hospital as an opportunity to attract greater international collaboration and investment into Ghana's healthcare system.

The Queen, who visited the facility in her capacity as the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Advocate for Financial Health, engaged patients, healthcare providers and policymakers on initiatives aimed at improving healthcare outcomes while reducing medical expenses.

Dr Yeboah said the visit demonstrated growing international interest in healthcare innovations being developed in Ghana.

"The Queen's visit, in many ways, demonstrates that Ghana's health system has attracted interest from several investors and partners abroad," he said.

"It is time for us to leverage strategic partnerships, technical cooperation and catalytic investments to initiate value-based healthcare within the entire health system."

He said CHAG was seeking to build on lessons from the pilot interventions and progressively expand Value-Based Care across other healthcare facilities.

"We are looking at how we can learn from the pilot experiences we have had and progressively scale them up across the entire healthcare sector," he explained.

He maintained that sustained investment in healthcare must be guided by evidence of improved treatment outcomes, financial protection and greater access to quality services.