Pursuing the Triple Aim: Seven Innovators Show the Way to Better Care, Better Health, and Lower Costs

Even with major steps forward – including the Affordable Care Act and the creation of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation -- the national health care debate is too often poisoned by negativity. A quieter, more thoughtful, and vastly more constructive conversation continues among health care leaders and professionals throughout the country. Innovative solutions are being designed and implemented at the local level, and countless health care organizations are demonstrating breakthrough remedies to some of the toughest and most expensive challenges in health care.

Pursuing the Triple Aim shares compelling stories that are emerging in locations ranging from Pittsburgh to Seattle, from Boston to Oakland, focused on topics including improving quality and lowering costs in primary care; setting challenging goals to control chronic disease with notable outcomes; leveraging employer buying power to improve quality, reduce waste, and drive down cost; paying for care under an innovative contract that compensates for quality rather than quantity; and much more. The authors describe these innovations in detail, and show the way toward a health care system for the nation that improves the experience and quality of care while at the same time controlling costs.

As the Triple Aim moves from being largely an aspirational framework to something that communities all across the US can implement and learn from, its potential to become a touchstone for the work ahead has never been greater. Pursuing the Triple Aim lays out the vision, the interventions, and promising examples of success.