Abstract
Dear readers of HSMR, in this issue you’ll find works that address two key issues in the agenda of all health systems. The first one refers to ‘health literacy’, which is a challenge both for patients and health organizations. The research published here illustrates well the reasons for which an investment in this area is much needed. If we really want to change the dominant paradigm in the care provision from compliance to concordance and from empowerment to self-management and co-production, we need to raise the level of health literacy in all ‘players’ of the health chain. Quality, efficacy and sustainability have a positive correlation with co-production and concordance, and so the investment in health literacy seems worth. Even if we need to consider the other side of the coin: better informed and educated patients are more difficult to manage by clinicians and are more keen to spot and assess the deficiencies in care provisions. However, in the end, this ‘pressure’ could lead health systems and professionals to make that leap toward a more patient-centred organization that we all expect and desire.
The second issue refers to the development of ‘business modelling’ within health organizations. Modern healthcare needs a new approach in designing and reconfiguring care provision. Business modelling can be a driver and a solution for this challenge. If we adopt in healthcare the mindset necessary to identify a business model in providing care, we might have a better chance to design care delivery process that answer the right questions: who we want to serve, how, which portfolio of services, what core and peripheral components, what resources are needed. In other words, we’ll stress health organizations and their professional to ask the big question: ‘what makes us valuable?’
If we are able to answer such a question, most likely we could develop through business modelling a much more ‘customized’, efficient, effective care provision. Chronic care, precision medicine, personalized therapy and many other disruptive changes in modern healthcare will increasingly call for this new mindset.
As the pace of change is increasing, as systems, organizations and professionals are introducing new model to cope with sustainability and quality challenges, researchers have the responsibility to react quickly to investigate and assess these changes. With this issue, we’re just opening the conversation on topics of health literacy and business modelling, as we look forward to receiving more and more works in the near future. Please, step forward.