Value-based healthcare delivery in addiction psychiatry.

Kristopher A. Kast, MD
Fellow in Addiction Psychiatry at the combined Partners HealthCare Program (MGH/McLean/BWH)
PGY-5

01/31/2020

Well curated, hands-on TDABC exercises provide
experience in assessing the real costs of care
cycles. 

The VBHD course found me at a critical moment in my professional development. While concurrently considering different opportunities for my first faculty position, the core concepts and cases we tackled in the VBHD course helped me clarify my interest in pursuing questions around value, patient-reported outcomes, team-based interdisciplinary care, cost, and systems design in my own field—addiction psychiatry. My experience in the course helped me to choose a faculty position where I will take-on an administrative and leadership role with opportunities to develop value-focused projects for a large academic medical center and interstate system-of-care.

The course did not attempt to over-simplify the complexity of applying its core principles to real-world systems. The cases and our discussions demonstrated the creative application of TDABC methods to wide-ranging populations and health conditions. The primary care model most closely fit what I have found in the care of patients seeking addiction and psychiatric care. There are unique challenges within this population, but I look forward to applying the principles from this course in my future work.