Medical Home – Do you have one? Do you need one? Where do you get one?

For a lot of us the health reform debate sounded like a foreign language. But at least one idea deserves translation – primary care medical home. This groundbreaking health care delivery model puts you at the center of a team of people working to get or keep you healthy. Think you have to travel for that kind of care? Nope – you can find it right here in King County.

The medical home model holds promise as a way to improve health care in America by transforming how primary care is organized and delivered. The idea is that your health doesn’t slip through the cracks of a web of medical professionals. If you have ever carried your x-rays from one doctor’s office to another, or if you have ever had a test conducted by one doctor only to be sent to a specialist and have the same, expensive, invasive test performed again, then you have some understanding of how a medical home can change things for you.

Health Matters and Own Your Health will host a lunch-and-learn where you can hear more about this promising new health care model and which clinics have it.  Dr. Marty Levine, Medical Center Chief, Group Health Northgate Medical Center and Dr. Reena Koshy, Project Coordinator Medical Home Pilot, Puget Sound Health Alliance, will talk about how Group Health has applied this model in its closed system and how this model can also be applied in a preferred provider setting. Join them Tuesday, November 15, 12:15 - 1:15, Chinook Room 121 and 123. RSVP to brooke.bascom@kingcounty.gov to attend.

Below are the hallmarks of a primary care medical home from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

The primary care medical home is accountable for meeting the large majority of each patient’s physical and mental health care needs, including prevention and wellness, acute care, and chronic care. Providing comprehensive care requires a team of care providers. This team might include physicians, advanced practice nurses, physician assistants, nurses, pharmacists, nutritionists, social workers, educators, and care coordinators. Although some medical home practices may bring together large and diverse teams of care providers to meet the needs of their patients, many others, including smaller practices, will build virtual teams linking themselves and their patients to providers and services in their communities.

The primary care medical home provides primary health care that is relationship-based with an orientation toward the whole person. Partnering with patients and their families requires understanding and respecting each patient’s unique needs, culture, values, and preferences. The medical home practice actively supports patients in learning to manage and organize their own care at the level the patient chooses. Recognizing that patients and families are core members of the care team, medical home practices ensure that they are fully informed partners in establishing care plans.

The primary care medical home coordinates care across all elements of the broader health care system, including specialty care, hospitals, home health care, and community services and supports. Such coordination is particularly critical during transitions between sites of care, such as when patients are being discharged from the hospital. Medical home practices also excel at building clear and open communication among patients and families, the medical home, and members of the broader care team.

The primary care medical home delivers accessible services with shorter waiting times for urgent needs, enhanced in-person hours, around-the-clock telephone or electronic access to a member of the care team, and alternative methods of communication such as email and telephone care. The medical home practice is responsive to patients’ preferences regarding access.

The primary care medical home demonstrates a commitment to quality and quality improvement by ongoing engagement in activities such as using evidence-based medicine and clinical decision-support tools to guide shared decision making with patients and families, engaging in performance measurement and improvement, measuring and responding to patient experiences and patient satisfaction, and practicing population health management. Sharing robust quality and safety data and improvement activities publicly is also an important marker of a system-level commitment to quality.