Using principles of co-production to improve patient care and enhance value

Abstract

Unlike goods, which are concrete and easily quantified, services are intangible processes that are produced and consumed concurrently. Health care is a service that can encourage optimal health outcomes only through meaningful, collaborative partnerships between patients and clinicians. Co-production of health services can be used as a means to rethink how health care is delivered not only in the context of face-to-face encounters in which the benefits of working together are obvious, but also in designing systems that can improve patient care and enhance value.