AIMMc help organizations develop interprofessional teams that improve the health outcomes and safety for high medication risk populations through patient-centered, cost-effective medication management services aligned with quality national standards.  The AIMM process recognizes integrating sustainable patient centered comprehensive medication management systems into healthcare organizations across our county is the solution to the current chronic condition epidemic facing our health care system.

A key component of the AIMMc is to increase awareness of the benefits of comprehensive medication management services among healthcare providers and to promote the integration of such services into the interdisciplinary healthcare team within both the private and public sectors.  AIMMc adopted the definition of comprehensive medication management services from the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative (PCPCC) and the Joint Commission of Pharmacy Practitioners (JCPP). (Joint Commission of Pharmacy Practitioners, 2014) (McInnis, Webb, & Strand, 2012) These models have a clear, comprehensive, and systematic patient care process that includes: (Joint Commission of Pharmacy Practitioners, 2014) (McInnis, Webb, & Strand, 2012)

• assessment of the patient’s medication-related needs,
• identification of the patient’s medication-related problems (MRPs),
• development of a care plan with individualized therapy goals and personalized interventions and,
• follow-up evaluations to determine actual patient outcomes.

In order to optimize patient health and outcomes, this process is approached as patient-centered in collaboration with the patient’s other health care provider and follows a cyclical process of: collect, assess, plan, implement, and follow-up.(Joint Commission of Pharmacy Practitioners, 2014)

AIMM uses an accelerated quality improvement process to help organizations make these immediate transformations into their care delivery system.

The Model for Improvement is a simple yet powerful tool for accelerating positive change.  Adopted by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, it is a proven quality improvement framework for rapidly testing, evaluating and implementing successful changes. The Model of Improvement consists of two parts: 1) three fundamental questions and 2) the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle.

The three fundamental questions establish the framework and guiding principles.  They focus on aims, measures, and ideas, and ask teams:

1. What are we trying to accomplish? (Aims)
2. How will we know that a change is an improvement? (Measures)
3. What change can we make that will result in an improvement? (Ideas for Change)

The answers to these three questions help organizations or teams to define a goal or desired outcome, to determine what data they need to see if the process resulted in an improvement, and to delineate action steps that result in a positive change.