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What is the Patient-Centered Medical Home?

A Patient-Centered Medical Home is a team-based model of care led by a personal physician who provides continuous and coordinated care throughout a patient's lifetime to maximize health outcomes. The PCMH practice is responsible for providing for all of a patient’s health care needs or appropriately arranging care with other qualified professionals. This includes the provision of preventive services, treatment of acute and chronic illness, and assistance with end-of-life issues. It is a model of practice in which a team of health professionals, coordinated by a personal physician, works collaboratively to provide high levels of care, access and communication, care coordination and integration, and care quality and safety.

• Joint Principles of the PCMH: In March 2007, the primary care professional societies endorsed a set of joint principles. These principles have now been endorsed by a total of 22 physician organizations.

 

• Joint Guidelines for Patient-Centered Medical Home Recognition and Accreditation Programs (March 2011) – These Guidelines, developed jointly by ACP, AAFP, AAP, and AOA, aim to ensure some standardization among PCMH Recognition and Accreditation Programs while encouraging a focus on the key elements of the PCMH.

 

• Joint Principles for the Medical Education of Physicians as Preparation for Practice in the PCMH (December 2010) - These principles, developed jointly by ACP, AAFP, AAP, and AOA, will guide medical school curricula in ensuring that all physicians, regardless of their specialty choice, will have the expertise to practice in a reformed health care delivery system based on the patient-centered medical home (see Press Release).

 

• Introduction to the Patient Centered Medical Home:
  Patients are curious about what a "Patient Centered Medical Home" is and this video was produced by Emmi Solutions in partnership with the Patient Centered Primary Care Collaborative (PCPCC) in an attempt to answer their questions. Many practices already provide the type of care outlined in the video, and it is by no means meant to be critical to those physicians who are doing their best to provide patient-centered care under the current structure.
  
  
  

 

• The Patient-Centered Medical Home: Overview of the Model and Movement (Two-Part Series)

  The following presentations describe the Patient-Centered Medical Home concept, who supports the model, where it is being tested, results to date, and how ACP can help practices.

  PCMH: Overview of the Model and Movement (Part I; 12 minutes)

  Complete Slideset:

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  PCMH: Overview of the Model and Movement (Part II; 12 minutes)

  Complete Slideset:

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• Guidelines for PCMH Demonstration Projects: In April 2009, the primary care professional societies released a set of guidelines intended to provide direction to demonstration projects in the planning phase and to facilitate more meaningful interpretation and understanding of the "lessons learned" from the different projects.

 

• Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) PCMH website: Provides objective information to policymakers and researchers on the medical home, including a searchable database of publications and other relevant resources.

 

• A more detailed description of the PCMH can be found in: The Advanced Medical Home: A Patient-Centered, Physician-Guided Model of Health Care (an ACP policy paper).

 

• NCQA Physician Practice Connection—Patient-Centered Medical Home (PPC-PCMH) (www.ncqa.org): The major primary care physicians groups, along with the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), have developed a recognition process called the PPC-PCMH. This process ensures that a qualifying practice is able to deliver services consistent with the PCMH model of care.

 

• Evaluation/Evidence of the Patient-Centered Medical Home (www.pcpcc.net): A briefing document that summarizes key findings from eight recent PCMH evaluation studies.

 

• Enhance Care Coordination through the PCMH - Background for Policymakers: A brief summary of some of the problems with current payment policies, how the PCMH can address those problems and enhance care coordination, and what Congress and other policymakers can do to support the PCMH concept. For further information on ACP's positions with regard to the PCMH, please visit the ACP Advocacy Activity section.

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