Triple Aim

This week, I had the privilege of attending a conference on the state of the “Triple Aim” in Minnesota. At the end of last year, the Center for Medicare & Medicaid put out a challenge to come up with a compelling new idea to deliver better health, improved care, and lower costs to people enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP, particularly those with the highest health care needs. In other words, the challenge is to come up with something to achieve the "Triple Aim." Those with the most innovative ideas will be rewarded from $1 to $30 million to implement this idea over the course of three years. Each grantee project will be monitored for measurable improvements in quality of care and savings generated.

I think we can all agree that 1 million, let alone 30 million dollars is a lot of money! Well, America responded with many applications, and the grant recipients should be announced in a few weeks. Minnesota contributed 42 grant applications from all walks of healthcare, from all sorts of health systems. These applications ranged from focusing on mental health or medication management, to broader topics like decreasing hospital readmissions or using a comprehensive approach to population health.

Now, what is the "Triple Aim?" This was initiated by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in October 2007. IHI began working with a group of 15 organizations in the US, England, and Sweden that are committed to implementing the five design components of the Triple Aim. Currently, this program has expanded to over 50 organizations from the US, Canada, England, Scotland, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore. The triple aim is three objections: establish better health for a population, establish a better patient experience, and lower cost. This sounds a lot simpler than it is.

In the United States, we are in a broken healthcare system. There is more incentive for healthcare professionals to go into specialty trainings, when primary care is the most effective in improving health, costs the least, and is also the most in demand. Our society would rather treat than prevent. When we go to a physician’s office, if all we get is advice, we're not satisfied. We want tests, procedures, and pills. If we're overweight or our blood pressure is high, we'd rather take a pill everyday than exercise everyday. Our bodies are made to move, yet we sit at desks all day. Our bodies are made to digest food, yet we feed ourselves non-food things. And yet, when we end up in a hospital bed, costing thousands of dollars, we still don't learn. We just load up on more tests, more procedures, and more pills.

This conference was a chance for everyone that contributed applications for the grant to meet and talk about ways we can improve health in Minnesota. This state is already the leader in healthcare of the nation, but there is so much room for improvement. Being able to attend the conference was eye-opening to me because healthcare can be affected in so many ways by so many different people.

The other meeting that I enjoyed attending this week was the Minnesota Pharmacists Foundation. It’s such a great cause on works to benefit great things – including student scholarships and the AWARxE project. Being a part of the meeting with the board allowed me to see what goes into running the foundation, and all of the great ways to get involved.