Colorado Residency Patient-Centered Medical Home Project

The Colorado Residency Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) Program is six-year grant from The Colorado Health Foundation that started in 2009.  This project is a collaboration among the University of Colorado Department of Family Medicine, HealthTeamWorks, the Colorado Association of Family Medicine Residencies, and the Colorado Institute of Family Medicine.  The project aims to assist Colorado’s Family and Internal Medicine Residency programs in PCMH practice improvement, incorporating a tandem approach that addresses both practice and curricular redesign.

The project is focused on the following: residency programs achieving National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) medical home recognition, practice coaching, curricular redesign to integrate key PCMH components into resident education, development of a PCMH e-Learning curriculum as a tool for implementation of the medical home into resident education, practice baseline and follow-up assessments with results showing significant improvements in all aspects of implementation of the PCMH, and a Biannual learning collaborative.

Practice coaching, provided by the project, has facilitated the establishment of PCMH Steering Committees and Practice Improvement Teams, staff and resident engagement in quality improvement efforts, enhanced teamwork throughout the practice, and leadership alignment.

Project goals for the final three years of implementation include continuing with practice coaching to facilitate PCMH sustainability, the curriculum redesign efforts and development of the PCMH e-Learning modules, the leadership alignment, patient engagement and activation, implementation of patient self-management support systems in the practices, and emphasize on population management, development of patient registries, and use of data.