Report also finds model produces care quality improvements
The evidence is clear that the use of patient-centered medical homes (PCMHs) can reduce healthcare costs, overuse of the emergency department and overall inpatient hospitalizations, according to a new, comprehensive report from the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative (PCPCC).
For some primary care physicians, the idea of transforming a practice into a medical home sounds like a major risk.
Yet practices that have made the change in states such as Rhode Island have reported smooth transitions, thanks in part to financial and technical support from public and private entities. By hiring a care manager and training existing staff to take on additional care tasks, the model can succeed, these physicians say.
The first thing patients probably notice when walking into the new doctors offices at Greater Baltimore Medical Center is there is no waiting room.
Patients go directly to an exam room, where doctors, nurses and other staff are supposed to cycle in during a half-hour appointment. All supplies are on hand, as are electronic medical records, to ensure that people leave with any needed prescriptions or referrals to specialists.
The design is patterned after one used by a Seattle medical system, which modeled it after Toyota's production system.
Remember patients? They are a driver in healthcare transformation—perhaps the most important one.
The Health IT and Quality Exchange that HealthLeaders Media held in La Jolla, California, last week for CMOs, CIOs, and CMIOs was eye-opening on a number of fronts.
The ideas, successes, and challenges that the gathered healthcare leaders shared in our small group sessions illustrated that changing a workflow or a process isn't nearly as important as changing an organization's focus from physicians and payers to patients.
But some doctors are trying to streamline the process and help the patient save time and money.
It’s called Patient-Centered Medical Home and two physicians stopped by FOX8 on Tuesday to talk about it — one physician with Eagle Physicians, the other with Triad Healthcare Network.
Eagle is the first medical group in the area to be PCMH-certified and this new way of caring for patients has a lot of advantages to offer.
How can providers overcome the challenges of creating the patient-centered medical home?
There are a lot of good things to be said for the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) model, which has been credited with reducing healthcare costs, boosting the delivery of preventative services, and improving care coordination with patients who may have complex chronic disease management needs. But transforming the average healthcare organization into a PCMH and achieving the official designation can be a challenging proposition.
Why should providers consider the PCMH model, and what barriers might stand in their way?
Harvard Pilgrim Health Care is working with health care providers throughout the region on an innovative, multi-faceted plan to better coordinate behavioral and medical health care for patients. As part of this initiative, Harvard Pilgrim has made quality grants to selected providers who are working to integrate these two facets of health care. Integration is of particular interest to those providers involved in Patient Centered Medical Homes (PCMH), a model that emphasizes care coordination among a patient’s specialists and primary care providers.
This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Marci Nielsen, Chief Exectutive Officer of the Patient Centered Primary Care Collaborative, a consortium of over a thousand stakeholders across the health care industry dedicated to promoting the comprehensive care provided in Patient Centered Medical Homes to improve primary care delivery.
