The Critical Factors Important for the Success of Value-Based Healthcare System in Qatar

Abstract

The thesis comprises two interconnected studies, each addressing a distinct but related dimension of value-based healthcare (VBHC) implementation in Qatar. The first study investigates how small and medium-sized enterprises across Qatar’s public and private healthcare sectors perceive the opportunities and barriers to VBHC adoption. Using semi-structured surveys (public sector n=18 and private sector n=6) analysed through thematic analysis, the study captures perspectives from government officials, executives, managers and clinicians. The findings reveal that opportunities centre on patient-outcome orientation, implementation feasibility and the potential for cross-sector integration, while barriers operate through insufficient technological infrastructure, absence of communication standards and misaligned incentives between public and private providers. These findings broadly correspond with patterns observed in other national contexts, despite the limited published evidence on VBHC globally. The second study builds directly on the first, using the seven critical factors identified across both the literature and the Qatar-specific qualitative data as inputs for interpretive structural modelling (ISM) – 94 respondents were surveyed and 24 participants were interviewed. This method establishes the directional relationships between factors rather than simply listing them, producing distinct implementation frameworks for the private sector, the public sector and both sectors combined. Across all three configurations, the knowledge cycle of care functions as the sole independent driver, exerting structural influence over all other variables. In the private sector model, government legislations emerge as a dependent outcome shaped by operational performance. In the public and integrated models, legislation is repositioned as an enabler within a densely interconnected cluster. The hybrid thematic analysis and ISM methodology constitutes the study’s novelty, demonstrating how qualitatively derived variables can be subjected to rigorous systems modelling.