In response to these challenges, the Institute of Medicine has established six aims for improvement. Health care should be:
Safe: avoiding injuries to patients from the care that is intended to help them.
Effective: providing services based on scientific knowledge to all who could benefit and refraining from providing services to those not likely to benefit (avoiding underuse and overuse).
Patient-centered: providing care that is respectful of and responsive to individual patient preferences, needs and values and ensuring that patients' values guide all clinical decisions.
Timely: reducing waits and sometimes harmful delays for both those who receive and those who give care.
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.
(Excerpt: Crossing The Quality Chasm, A New Health System for the 21st Century, Institute of Medicine, 2001, National Academy of Sciences.)