What is the Patient-Centered Medical Home?

The Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) is a care delivery model whereby patient treatment is coordinated through their primary care physician to ensure they receive the necessary care when and where they need it, in a manner they can understand.

The objective is to have a centralized setting that facilitates partnerships between individual patients, and their personal physicians, and when appropriate, the patient’s family. Care is facilitated by registries, information technology, health information exchange and other means to assure that patients get the indicated care when and where they need and want it in a culturally and linguistically appropriate manner.

• ACP Practice Advisor is an online tool that utilizes self-paced modules that cover all aspects of becoming a patient-centered medical home.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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)

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

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• 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 ACP's policy paper: The Advanced Medical Home: A Patient-Centered, Physician-Guided Model of Health Care

• National Medical Home Recognition and Accreditation Programs: the following national organizations have developed medical home recognition and accreditation programs that have been recognized by payers in different geographic areas.

  • NCQA Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) Recognition Program
  • URAC Patient Centered Medical Home Recognition Program
  • Joint Commission Primary Care Medical Home Program
  • Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care Medical Home Program

• Evaluation/Evidence of the Patient-Centered Medical Home: 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.