Work

Merits of the social return on investment methodology for assessing the value of palliative care programmes

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Despite the widely accepted benefits of palliative care for individuals with serious illnesses and their families, the utilisation of this approach remains low. Although an increased use of palliative care services can increase the value of health-care spending by providing comprehensive wraparound services to support care, the economic evidence required to implement, promote, and engage in palliative care models on a wide scale eludes the affected individuals, health-care providers, payers, and policy makers. This gap in evidence is partly owing to the methodological limitations of standard value-assessment frameworks, which do not capture important societal dimensions of the value generated by palliative care. This Personal View proposes the adoption of value-assessment frameworks that incorporate broader dimensions of social value into the evaluation of palliative care programmes. We focus on the social return on investment methodology as an example of a value-assessment framework that can complement standard frameworks to better capture the social impact and all-around benefits of palliative care.

Source: The Lancet Healthy Longevity

DOI: 10.1016/j.lanhl.2024.100669

Authors: Olivia Monton, Emmanuel F Drabo, Shannon Fuller, Fabian M Johnston

Institutions: Johns Hopkins University, Johns Hopkins Medicine, McMaster University, Wake Forest University Health Sciences, Wake Forest University

Language: English

Topic: Palliative Care and End-of-Life Issues

Subfield: Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

Field: Medicine

Domain: Health Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $6,680