IOM Six Aims for Improvement and Ten Rules for Redesign

Six Aims for Improvement

These aims are built around the core need for health care to be:

1. Safe: avoiding injuries to patients from the care that is intended to help them.
2. Effective: providing services based on scientific knowledge to all who could benefit, and refraining from providing services to those not likely to benefit.
3. Patient-centered: providing care that is respectful of and responsive to individual patient preferences, needs, and values, and ensuring that patient values guide all clinical decisions.
4. Timely: reducing waits and sometimes harmful delays for both those who receive and those who give care.
5. Efficient: avoiding waste, including waste of equipment, supplies, ideas, and energy.
6. Equitable: providing care that does not vary in quality because of personal characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, geographic location, and socioeconomic status.