There are three components to Triple Value: personal value, population value and technical value.
Personal value
Improving the outcomes that matter to an individual for a given amount of resources (money, leadership, time, assets, and carbon) used not only by the health system but also by the individual and their family, recognising that the experience of care is a critical element.
Source: Oxford Centre for Triple Value Healthcare
Significance:
Personal value, along with population value, are the two core goals for health and social care systems. Whenever someone makes a decision about their treatment options, especially if it is a fateful decision that cannot be ‘undone’, it is important that they are fully supported to be able to maximise the personal value they might gain. In the case of fateful decisions, the individual is investing their current (or future predicted) state of health and wellbeing in return for a better state of health or wellbeing. If the procedure does them more harm than good, and the decision is fateful, then personal value will have been reduced.
Population value
Investing resources (money, leadership, time, assets and carbon) more wisely within a health and social care system to optimise the outcomes for the population for which the health and social care system is responsible
Source: Oxford Centre for Triple Value Healthcare
Significance:
Population value, along with personal value, are the two core goals for health and social care systems. This is because, in health systems that provide universal coverage for a specific population or group of people with a common condition (e.g. end of life, joint pain or people at risk of stroke) resources must be invested wisely to optimise population value within the resources available. This requires a focus on efficiency, unwarranted variation, overuse and underuse (underuse includes people who are already being treated and people with unmet need not receiving treatment).
Technical value
Net benefit derived in return for a given resource use.
Source: Oxford Centre for Triple Value Healthcare
Significance:
Technical value is synonymous with technical efficiency, that is, it represents the net benefit achieved for a given amount of resources used. Because of the narrowness of this definition, that it does not always properly address personal value, and does not consider critical elements of population value (especially related to overuse, underuse and equity), technical value (technical efficiency) is not a goal in of itself. It is a useful tool to achieve the two core goals of health and social care systems to continuously increase population and personal value.