Patient Centered Medical Home
What is a Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH)?
A Patient Centered Medical Home is a team of healthcare professionals who work together to provide patient-centered, comprehensive, coordinated, accessible and collaborative health services. Your team gets to know you well and works together with support staff and the broader healthcare system to provide the best possible care for you.
A Medical Home is About YOU
Caring about YOU is the most important job of a medical home. We will partner with you and your family to ensure that you are fully informed partners in establishing your care plan. You will be an active participant in all decisions related to your ongoing medical care and improving the quality of your overall health.
How a Medical Home Works for YOU
- Your medical home team will help to coordinate your appointments with specialists, hospitals, and other services. We will act as your advisor and advocate and will help assure that all testing, procedures, and specialist appointments are appropriate and coordinated in an efficient and high quality fashion.
- Your medical home team will develop a personal care plan to help you achieve the best possible health outcomes. Your personal care plan will be respectful of and responsive to your preferences, needs and values.
- A member of your healthcare team is available when you need them; communication is available around-the-clock by telephone or electronic access through our secure web portal, NextMD. You will choose the method by which you wish to communicate.
- Appointments will be scheduled in a timely manner with shorter waiting times for urgent care, even on the same day when needed.
- Your medical home team will monitor your medical needs and will contact you to schedule follow-up appointments if they are not already arranged.
The Patient Centered Medical Home Manages Care Through:
- selection of a primary care clinician;
- involvement in his or her own treatment plan;
- management of referrals;
- coordination of care;
- collaboration with patient-selected clinicians who provide specialty care or second opinions;
- communication with the Patient Centered Medical Home about healthcare concerns/other information
- We are your Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH)
- We are all here to support you. We are your team.
- We care about all of you. We want to help you with your physical and mental well-being. We want you to be as well as you can be.
- We can help you see specialists and get support from services in the community.
- We are here for you. Call us, visit us, contact us online. Ask front desk staff about our patient portal NextMD where you can access your electronic health record or email your provider.
- We want you to have great and safe care.
SCH has Patient Centered Medical Home certification by The Joint Commission. The Joint Commission’s PCMH certification is based on the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ) definition of a medical home, which includes these core functions and attributes:
- Patient-centered care – Relationship-based care focuses on the whole person and understanding and respecting each patient’s needs, culture, values and preferences.
- Comprehensive care – A team of providers (may include physicians, advanced practice nurses, physician assistants, nurses, pharmacists, nutritionists, mental health workers, social workers and others) work to meet each patient’s physical and mental health care needs, including prevention and wellness, acute care and chronic care.
- Coordinated care – Care is coordinated across the broader health care system, including specialty care, hospitals, home care and community services and support. This is particularly critical during transitions between sites of care, such as when patients are discharged from the hospital.
- Superb access to care – Patients have access to services with shorter waiting times for urgent needs, enhanced in-person hours, around the clock telephone or electronic access to members of the care team, and alternative methods of communication such as e-mail and telephone.
- Systems-based approach to quality and safety – The PCMH uses evidence-based medicine and clinical decision support tools, engages in performance measurement and improvement, measures and responds to patient experiences and satisfaction, practices population health management, and publicly shares robust quality and safety data and improvement activities.
The Joint Commission’s PCMH certification option also focuses on education and self-management by the patient. Patients benefit from this model of care because they have increased access to their primary care clinician and interdisciplinary team; their care is tracked and coordinated; and increased use of health information technology supports their care. If you are interested in participation in the program, all you need to do is continue to receive your care from our providers. If you do NOT want to participate in the program, you may complete an opt-out form which is available from your provider. If you choose not to participate, you are still welcome to be our patient and to receive care as you always have. Patients also have the right to obtain care from other clinicians within the Patient Centered Medical Home, to see a second opinion, and to seek specialty care.
For more information on The Joint Commission Patient Centered Medical Home Model visit
https://www.jointcommission.org/accreditation/pchi.aspx
