CMS-10360 HC Formative Testing Handout

Six Aims for Improvement
(Adapted from Crossing the Quality Chasm, Executive Summary)
Aims for the 21st-Century Health Care System
The Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Quality of Health Care in America has proposed six
aims for improvement in today’s health care system.
Health care should be:
• Safe—avoiding injuries to patients from the care that is meant to help
them
• Effective—providing services based on scientific knowledge to all who can benefit
• Patient-centered—providing care that is respectful of and responsive to
individual patient preferences, needs, and values
• Timely—reducing waits and sometimes harmful delays
• Efficient—avoiding waste, including waste of equipment, supplies, ideas,
and energy.
• Equitable—providing care that does not vary in quality because of personal
characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, geographic location, and socioeconomic
status.
A health care system that achieves major gains in these six dimensions will be better at meeting
patient needs. Patients will experience care that is safer, more reliable, more responsive, more
integrated, and more available.

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