Patient-Centered Medical Home: A Model for Rural Physician Practices and Communities?
In recent years, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), and others have promoted a patient-centered practice model�the patient-centered medical home (PCMH)�that delivers patient-centered, physician-guided, cost-efficient, longitudinal care. The 2006 Practice Profile Survey of the AAFP showed considerable variation in adoption of services seen as part of a PCMH, from 12% who use web-based consults or e-visits to 24% who use registries or patient tracking systems to 41% who use electronic medical records to 47% who use chronic disease management. Rural practices will need to meet the expectations inherent in the PCMH model or lose any payment advantage that comes with participating as a PCMH. The goal of this project is to assess rural readiness to adopt services seen as part of a PCMH.
We will analyze questions relevant to the PCMH formation from national surveys and compare the use of various elements of electronic medical records among different categories of rural practices, between urban and rural practices, and among practices with different payer mix. We will design a readiness assessment tool and pilot test the tool with two randomly selected rural primary care practices in each of the nine census divisions. Products will include a policy brief and an issue paper.
Publications
-
Patient-Centered Medical Home Services in 29 Rural Primary Care Practices: A Work in Progress
Author(s): A. Clinton MacKinney, Fred Ullrich, Keith J. Mueller
Date: 09 / 2011
Discusses survey responses from 29 rural physician practices from around the country. When asked about their use of specific policies and procedures that are included as criteria to certify patient-centered medical homes, fewer of them would qualify in each of five domains, including access to care, population-based, quality, care management, and clinical information management.
-
Use of Health Information Technology in Support of Patient-Centered Medical Homes Is Low Among Non-metropolitan Family Medicine Practices
Author(s): Keith J. Mueller, Fred Ullrich, A. Clinton MacKinney
Date: 04 / 2011
By creating a medical home program within Medicare, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 gave momentum to growing interest in the concept of a patient-centered medical home (PCMH). Are physician practices, especially non-metropolitan primary care practices, ready to become PCMHs? We use a nationwide survey of physician practices to partially answer this question, focusing on the use of health information technology.
|
