By Kristin Paulson, JD, MPH, CEO and President
As the summer winds down and the evenings have begun to cool off with the first hints of fall, I’m reminded of how change is constant all around us. Whether it’s the seasons, kids growing up, or what shows Netflix is discontinuing this month, growth and transition are everywhere – including health care. When I started with CIVHC over a decade ago, achieving the Triple Aim of better health, better care, and lower cost was the gold standard for health care improvement. Former Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Don Berwick introduced the Triple Aim in 2008 and the idea picked up speed as a framework to direct improvements to our health care system.
Since then, as health care reform efforts uncovered more about how the system is (and isn’t) working for people, the Triple Aim expanded to the Quadruple Aim (clinician well-being) and then the Quintuple Aim (health equity). Yet, CIVHC’s mission remained grounded in the Triple Aim of 2008. This year, however, while I worked with the leadership team to decide how we were going to be changing and challenging ourselves moving forward, we decided it was also time for CIVHC’s mission to evolve to reflect what we believe is foundational to improving the health of Coloradans.
Developing a mission and vision statement is no small feat, as many of you know quite well. Creating the few brief sentences that encompass your purpose and goals as an organization and that are accessible to anyone you may reach or serve is an incredibly challenging undertaking. In a multi-month strategic planning process earlier in 2023, our executive leadership team explored who we are as an organization, where we’ve come from and want to go, and what we can do to get there. Our goal was to come away grounded in an understanding of how we want to show up for the communities, individuals, and partners we serve. We wanted our new mission and vision statements to be free of health care jargon (like “the Triple Aim”) and to clearly express our goal to make CIVHC and the work we do accessible and relatable to everyone.
During our strategic planning process, we realized that rebuilding our Mission and Vision would also require revisiting our core organizational values. The values we held for years were missing key elements of who we are as an organization. First, our focus on equity has always been central to our work – internally focused to create a diverse, equitable, and just work environment, and externally focused on providing data and services to support and advance health equity. Next, a critical benefit we bring to the state and nation is our strong and reliable stewardship of Colorado’s APCD. Finally, we wanted to make sure that CIVHC’s commitment to service was recognized as the heart of who we are as an organization and that everything we do is done with the highest integrity. We are keenly aware that we can only earn the trust of those we serve by providing objective, transparent, high-quality data and services that can be put into action to improve health and health care.
We’re proud of our new mission, vision, and values and use them as guideposts in our work every day. They are reflective of who CIVHC is as an organization and servant leader and what we are working to become. As you read through our updated foundational statements below, I welcome any feedback or comments you have, and I look forward to working with all of you to achieve these important goals for Colorado.