When the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, or IHI, put together its approach to optimizing health system performance, it settled on the idea of Triple Aim Healthcare. It is IHI’s belief that medical practices need to develop new designs in order to simultaneously pursue the three goals of achieving effective healthcare, or the “Triple Aim:”
Better Care for the Individual
Improving the individual patient experience by improving quality of care and satisfaction with the level of care provided.
Improved Population Health
By improving quality of care to the individual, it should follow that society as a whole will benefit.
Lower Per Capita Costs
Improving patient results and decreasing the need for chronic care management by improving systems and procedures should result in a decreased cost of providing care. Practitioners should therefore be able to experience increased revenue through more cost-efficient practice and revenue management.
Triple Aim Healthcare is an outgrowth of the IHI’s response to the ever-increasing costs of providing and receiving healthcare in the United States. This may be due to the aging “Baby Boomer” population, increased number of patients with chronic health problems, outdated office records management, lack of efficient communication systems between healthcare providers, or other contributing factors.
To integrate Triple Aim Healthcare into a practice philosophy, IHI recommends following a systematic change process which includes:
- Identify target populations.
- Define system aims and measures.
- Develop a portfolio of project work that is sufficiently strong to move system-level results.
- Conduct rapid testing and implementation, carefully adapted to local community conditions.
The end goal is to empower patients while broadening the impact of primary care, thereby creating a positive health journey throughout the course of a patient’s life.
To learn more about achieving the principles of Triple Aim Healthcare in your practice, read our Knowledge Drop here.
