Assume you are a strategic planning manager with your selected healthcare organization. You have been asked to prepare an evaluation of the IHI Triple Aim goals and how they apply to your organization. Write a 700- to 1,050-word evaluation of the impact of implementing Triple Aim goals nationally, as well as how they apply to your selected organization.
The Impact of IHI’s Triple and Quadruple Aim Initiatives
The IHI Triple Aim provides health organizations, other healthcare actors, and communities a framework to successfully manage and optimize healthcare systems for better health systems performance (Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), n.d.). The main concept of the IHI Triple Aim is that the health of individuals and communities can be optimized by optimizing health systems. This requires a shift in focus and focusing on approaches that optimize health system performance. To achieve this, health organizations and communities must develop new system designs that will help them address the critical dimensions for improved health system performance, including care quality, population health, and costs of care.
IHI Triple Aim Goals
The Triple Aim initiative was launched by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) in October 2007. The IHI launched the Triple Aim as a framework designed to improve the status of the United States healthcare system by focusing on three main goals (Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), n.d.). One of the major goals of the IHI’s Triple Aim initiative includes the improvement of the experiences of the patients within the US, including the quality of healthcare and patient satisfaction. The second goal of the Triple Aim includes the improvement of the health of the US population. The third goal aims to reduce the per capita costs of healthcare (Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), n.d.).
US Health has invested heavily in improving the status of the healthcare system. The subsequent government leadership and Congress have passed national bills and made major policy implementations that have made notable progress nationally toward achieving the Triple Aim goals. The US has achieved a lot of progress in reducing the costs of care by improving the provisions and coverage of publicly managed health programs such as Medicare and Medicaid and creating an environment for establishing marketplace health insurance options. These improvements have reduced the costs of care with an impact on healthcare accessibility and cost-related experiences. Additionally, the reduction in health care costs with accessible and affordable cost-sharing health plans has positively impacted health services utilization, leading to improved population health. The US will be able to further achieve the Triple Aim goals due to improved uptake of health care coverage plans and the expansion of the Medicaid and Medicare plans to cover diseases that were initially excluded, such as diabetes, after the enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has improved insurance coverage by reducing income-related, race-related, household-related, and age-related coverage gaps by 43, 23, 46, and 36 percent, respectively (Courtemanche et al., 2019).
Application of the IHI Triple Aim Goals in CVS Health®
CVS Health is one of the major health solutions organizations in the US with an international presence. The organization is focused on providing services ranging from wellness and pharmacy services to virtual care services, as well as prescription coverage and health plans. The Triple Aim goals can be easily applied to CVS Health based on its focus and purpose in the health care system. For reducing the per capita cost of health care services and improving the health of the population, CVS, through its Aetna Medicare Advantage (MA), plans to provide premium services that will fully cover prescription drug costs for 3.2 million Medicare beneficiaries (CVS Health, 2022). Additionally, CVS health plans to expand its Aetna Medicare Advantage (MA) plans to cover 2,014 counties by 2023 with improved accessibility to an estimated 55 million people under Medicare coverage. On the IHI’s Triple Aim to improve patient experiences, including quality and satisfaction in care, CVS Health is committed to providing quality care whenever and wherever needed. A report by JD Power focused on US retail health, pharmacy, and wellness services customer satisfaction placed CVS pharmacy second with a score of 879 (Roderick, 2021).
Once implemented in CVS Health, the success of each of the IHI’s Triple Aim goals will be measured using the IHI’s measures. For population health measures, IHI recommends focusing on risk status, the burden of disease, mortality rates, and health-related quality of life (HRQOL). For patient experience, measures include the level of satisfaction and likelihood of recommending CVS Health services, while for per capita care costs, the measure will focus on monthly copay costs and CVS Health service utilization rates.
IHI’s Quadruple Aim
The IHI views the Quadruple Aim as an extension of the Triple Aim with an added job