Quadruple Aim[1] is similar to a compass in that it guides an important direction that the health system — including in our opinion both patients/citizens and professionals like providers — needs to go in. However change won’t happen overnight. Rather, continuously driving, updating and optimizing will have a compounding factor that will ultimately lead to a healthier and happier population. That’s why we use the Quadruple Aim model to ‘score’ the impact of out programs and participations and our entire portfolio.

Quadruple Aim is an approach developed in order to optimize health system performance. The goal of the model is to improve the patient/citizens care experience, improve the health of a population, improve the experience of professionals and reduce per capita health care costs. The models stresses that the strategy is a single aim with four dimensions.

Enhancing the patient experience

Improving the patient experience aims to enhance the quality of care that patients receive, having a greater focus on individuals and families. Originally, this was the sole aim of healthcare and it consists of issues like safety, effectiveness, efficiency, patient-centeredness etc.

This aspect is concerned with the individual experience of care and how they can achieve high-quality, effective care — both the subjective and objective experience. With an improved patient experience comes more educated patients that understand their condition(s) and are prepared with the tools to better manage their own care and improve outcomes.

Improving population health

With the Quadruple Aim naturally comes the goal of improving the health of the overall population. As mentioned previously, creating an improved patient experience will help achieve this through more educated patients that can manage their health more effectively.

Improving the health of populations takes the first individual aspect of the Quadruple Aim and expands it towards the whole population. Society is facing an increase in chronic diseases, so improving the patient experience for all individuals will ultimately lead to a decrease in prevalence and/or severity of chronic diseases and overall better chronic care management.

Lower costs

The Triple Aim intends to achieve the two aspects above while simultaneously reducing the per capita cost of health care. The needs of society go beyond healthcare and resources are required to achieve other desirable outcomes as well.

Keeping this aspect linked with improved patient experience and improving the health of populations ensures that while costs are driven down, the quality of care isn’t compromised. Therefore, while the goal is to improve the health of the population so that individuals don’t need to visit providers as frequently, if and when they do it will be much more affordable.

Improving professional experience

Each of the above-mentioned dimensions is critical in optimizing the health system performance, but one aspect is  added:  the care providers (the professionals) themselves. As value-based care becomes more prevalent, the quality of care that is provided becomes essential, and it all starts with the provider (professional). The pressure that is put on them is immense, leading to unwanted outcomes that can negatively affect the quality of care provided. In order to combat this the aspect is part of the model as well.

[1] Bodenheimer T, Sinsky C. From triple to quadruple aim: care of the patient requires care of the provider. Ann Fam Med. 2014;12(6):573-576. doi:10.1370/afm.1713