Healthcare Operations Management: Triple Aims

Today's complex healthcare delivery systems are challenging and complex. Effective managers, healthcare leaders, must be equipped to manage people and create and sustain strong operational and managerial processes to reduce costs, increase safety, improve clinical outcomes, and allow the organization to compete effectively.

In October 2007 the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) launched the Triple Aim initiative, designed to help health care organizations improve the 1) health of a population, 2) patients' experience of care (including quality, access, and reliability) while lowering—or at least reducing the 3) rate of increase in—the per capita cost of care. Pursuing these three objectives at once allows health care organizations to identify and fix problems such as poor coordination of care and overuse of medical services. It also helps them focus attention on and redirect resources to activities that have the greatest impact on health.