​More Information

To learn more about this work, including opportunities for health plans and insurers to work with IHI, contact:

Jeffrey Rakover
Research Associate, Innovation
jrakover@ihi.org

Health Plans and Insurers Advancing Improvement

Many health plans across the United States have embraced the Triple Aim as an organizing framework to optimally serve their members. In this vein, plans are recognizing the value of quality improvement methods, including the Model for Improvement, as a key to moving toward improved partnerships with providers and services for members.

IHI’s approach to working with health plans and insurers centers on enhancing partnerships with the provider community — moving toward true collaboration to find solutions to underlying barriers that impede efforts to improve health care while reducing per capita costs.

IHI understands the critical role of health plans in driving large-scale Triple Aim results. We offer a broad portfolio of programs and resources that are relevant to the needs of health plans — whether that's helping to enhance the quality improvement and coaching skills of health plan staff, or improvement that focuses on specific areas of care delivery such as integration of behavioral health care with primary care or improving perinatal outcomes.

​Publications

Behavioral Health Integration: A Key Component of the Triple Aim
Organizations seeking to move toward the Triple Aim must develop an integrated behavioral health strategy across the continuum of care. This article discusses an Institute for Healthcare Improvement research project that examined the core principles underlying several successful approaches to behavioral health integration around the US.

Improving the Health of Populations
With the rapid growth of accountable care organizations, health care delivery organizations are expanding their scope of accountability and changing how they identify and define their immediate goals and longer-term aspirations. Yet the terms to describe this approach — “population health” and “population management” — are often used interchangeably. This article makes the case that a common language is needed, provides clarification around terminology, and offers five questions for health care leaders to explore.

A Framework for Spread: From Local Improvements to System-Wide Change
A key factor in closing the gap between best practice and common practice is the ability of health care providers and their organizations to rapidly spread innovations and new ideas.

Planning for Scale: A Guide for Designing Large-Scale Improvement Initiatives
This white paper may be used as a preparation tool by those that are planning to take effective health care practices from one setting or isolated environment and to make them ubiquitous across a health care system, region, state, or nation.

​More Resources

Can Payer Partnerships Advance the Triple Aim?
By going beyond incentive payments, quality measurement, and small-scale quality improvement assistance, payers can play a major role in large-scale quality improvement.

Care Coordination Tips from a Pioneer ACO
As a CMS Pioneer Accountable Care Organization, Montefiore Medical Center has achieved financial and organizational sustainability even though more than 80 percent of its patient population is on Medicare and Medicaid.

What Is Health Equity, and Why Does It Matter?
In this video series, David R. Williams, Professor of Public Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, shares his insights into health equity in an interview with Don Berwick, MD, IHI President Emeritus and Senior Fellow. Dr. Williams discusses his research on health equity and why it’s important to health systems and communities as they work to improve health care and health.