(12/16/10) – Physician Practice Connections® – Patient-Center Medical Home™ standards emphasize enhanced care through patient-clinician partnership

McLeod Health is pleased to announce that the McLeod Family Medicine Center has received recognition from the Physician Practice Connections-Patient Centered Medical Home (PPC-PCMH) program for using evidence-based, patient-centered processes that focus on highly coordinated care and long-term participative relationships. This recognition was granted by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), a private, non-profit organization dedicated to improving health care quality.

"This is an accomplishment of great magnitude," said Dr. William Hester, Program Director, McLeod Family Medicine Center Residency Program. "We have been working toward NCQA Recognition since summer of 2009. In just over a year, we were able to achieve this recognition. It was amazing that we were able to accomplish this in so little time. I am so incredibly proud and want to congratulate all of our staff who worked so hard to make this happen."

Included in the Recognition are the physicians and faculty members of the McLeod Family Medicine Residency Program: Dr. Walter Conner, Dr. Gerard Jebaily, Dr. Kievers Cunningham, Dr. Richard Howell, Dr. Allan Macdonald, Dr. John Mattheis and Cynthia Lawrimore, ANP.

"Measuring and reporting on health care quality is extremely important; it gives consumers and employers the ability to make informed choices and pursue the best available care," said Dr. Hester. "But health care quality assessment is more than just informing buyers and consumers about their options. It’s also about giving feedback to health plans, medical groups and doctors that they can use to address quality issues and improve over time."

The Patient-Centered Medical Home is a promising model of health care delivery that aims to improve the quality and efficiency of care. PPC-PCMH identifies practices that promote partnerships between patients and their personal physician, instead of treating patient care as the sum of several office visits. Each patient’s care is tended to by clinician-led care teams, who provide for all the patient’s health care needs and coordinate treatments across the health care system. Medical home clinicians demonstrate the benchmarks of patient-centered care, including open scheduling, expanded hours and appropriate use of proven health information care quality and lowering costs by increasing access to more efficient, more coordinated care. By avoiding unnecessary hospitalizations and emergency room visits, these early results are producing savings for payers, purchasers and patients.

"The patient-centered medical home promises to improve health and health care," said NCQA President Margaret E. O’Kane. "The active, ongoing relationship between a patient and a clinician in medical homes fosters an all-too-rare goal in care: staying healthy and preventing illness in the first place. PPC-PCMH Recognition shows that McLeod Family Medicine Center has tools, systems and resources to provide its patients with the right care at the right time."

To receive recognition, which is valid for three years, McLeod Family Medicine Center demonstrated the ability to meet the program’s key elements embodying characteristics of the medical home. The standards are aligned with the joint principles of the Patient-Centered Medical Home established with the American College of Physicians, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Osteopathic Association.

McLeod Family Medicine Center met key program components in the following areas:
• Written standards for patient access and enhanced communications
• Appropriate use of tools to track patients and organize clinical information
• Responsive care management techniques with an emphasis on preventive care
• Adaption to patient’s cultural and language needs
• Use of information technology for prescriptions and care management
• Use of evidence-based guidelines to treat chronic conditions
• Systematic tracking of referrals and test results
• Measurement and reporting of clinical and service performance

"NCQA recognition does not guarantee provision of quality care," said Dr. Hester. "That’s the work for the practice. As a Patient-Centered Medical Home we are expected to improve chronic illnesses by engaging patients in their treatment plan; address prevention of chronic illnesses; partner with communities; incorporate mental health services; and help control health care costs. Here at McLeod Family Medicine Center we continually rise to the challenge."