Is the "triple aim of health care" analogous to the dual mandate of the Federal Reserve

Well, it can be argued that they are both unachievable and the execution of their aims and goals will require wise men such as the "Men of system" discussed by Adam Smith.

In 1977,  Congress, having accepted at least part of the theory of Keynesian economics, amended The Federal Reserve Act, with the passage of the Humphrey-Hawkins Act, stating the monetary policy objectives of the Federal Reserve as:

"The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Open Market Committee shall maintain long run growth of the monetary and credit aggregates commensurate with the economy's long run potential to increase production, so as to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices and moderate long-term interest rates."

In other words, the Federal Reserve System is tasked by law to control inflation and maximize employment in spite of the fact, given the tools to which the system has access, that the two mandates might be incompatible.

Dr Don Berwick speaks of medicine's "triple aim"  ( as envisioned by the Institute for Health Care Improvement)  : Population health,the patient's experience and the per capita cost.The collective medicinal "we" should strive  to improve population health,the individual patient's experience and reduce the per capita cost.

I am reminded of a series of  articles in JAMA in 1994 by Dr. David Eddy ( "Rationing resources while improving quality" ) in which he promised to provide a means to improve quality of medical care and reduce costs. This was to be done by utilizing a utilitarian cost calculus.The idea was to do what was best for the group,the health care collective statistically, even though he admitted that in such a system there would be winners and losers but the utility to the former would out way the dis utility to the minority. Of course in this scheme quality had to be defined or redefined as  what is better for the aggregate. At least Eddy was candid about there being losers,in Berwick's utopian visions in the picture he paints there seem only to be winners.The population will do better, the individual patient's experience will improve and "we" will spend less money per patient. Everyone will do better and it will even cost less.What could possibly be wrong with that?

I believe that IHI's policy recommendations are basically Eddy's prescription adorned with a layer or two of management-speak verbiage dumped on the top to obfuscate what is really happening. When you claim to improve population health care or outcome and simultaneously  decrease per capital costs, you essentially are doing a cost effectiveness analysis based on a statistical benefit to some group ( e.g. those covered lives in an ACO or HMO) regardless of what determent might befall some other  individuals in the group making the third aim of improving the  patient's experience little more than a fraudulent claim. This is population medicine dressed up in polite euphemisms designed to flimflam the members of the health care collective.

Both Dr. Robert Berenson and Dr. Harold Sox,former president of the American College of Physicians, are  perhaps more candid about about their visions for medical care in the country.

Berenson writing in 1998 in the Annals of Internal Medicine said.

"We propose that devotion to the best interests of each individual be replaced with an ethic of devotion to the best interests of the group for which the physician is personally responsible.

Berenson makes it clear that the individual's interest should be trumped by the group's interest.


Dr Harold Sox, former president of the American College of Physicians, in his commentary regarding "population medicine"  made it clear that in shifting funds from managing one disease to another would involve for at least a few generations a situation in which some patients might not receive  treatment so that others might enjoy some type of preventive measures.

Quoting Sox's  November 12, 2013 JAMA commentary:

 "Planning to optimize population health will mean determining the frequency,causes and consequences of he common medical conditions in a population and devising strategies for dealing with them over a lifetime. "...
resources must be allocated across program to prevent,detect and treat disease and its risk factors. "...One reasonable principle to move resources from groups of patients less likely to benefit to groups more likely to benefit...

With the application of this utilitarian calculus there will be winners and losers which Sox seems to admit implicitly the following paragraph.

"It will take several generations to realize the benefit of investments in disease prevention.In the short run, these investments may draw resources away from the tests and treatment of some sick people.In the long run, diseased prevention and better low-cost technology could reduce the outlay for treatment."

If Berwick's, triple aim is something other than  the utilitarian approach of Eddy,Berenson and Sox I wish someone would explain. It is the old wine in newly labeled bottles, this time labeled "enhanced patient experience" and the platitudinous "patient centered care" when really it is the greatest good for the greatest number as judged by cost effectiveness calculation and the real winners are the third party payers and their fellow travelers.


addendum: 12.8/2014.Some editorial changes made to clarify some points and correct spelling.