Imagine if the only place you could bring your child when she develops a fever or an ear infection, or needs a checkup or a refill for her asthma inhaler, was to a hospital emergency room. Or imagine you have multiple medical problems—diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol, say—yet don’t have a regular doctor you can trust will make sure you’re getting all the right care you need to keep them under control.
In other words, imagine how difficult it would be to get all the care you and your family need to stay healthy without a primary care provider.
The federal government has launched demonstration projects to test whether patient-centered medical homes (PCMHs) can tackle some of the biggest problems facing the nation’s health care system. Advocates are holding out hope that medical homes will help to slow the growth of health care spending while improving the quality of care. The medical home is a model that aims to transform the organization and delivery of primary care. The PCMH model focuses on personalized care, teamwork, and coordination of care to ensure that patient needs are met effectively and efficiently.
“There’s a big problem with trying to coordinate mental health care and the system is failing families. If mental health is addressed early, it can lessen the impact, so it’s important to be proactive.”
UCSF researchers conducted the first study ever to comprehensively examine medical homes for adolescents. They reviewed the rates of medical home attainment from the 2007 National Survey of Children’s’ Health (NSCH), a national survey of 91,642 parents, including roughly 45,000 who had children aged 10 to 17.
"We believe we can do better. Our group of diverse health care stakeholders came together over the past year to develop a road map to transform the health care system by improving efficiency, clinical effectiveness, and value for patients."
A diverse group of health care stakeholders present their recommendations for controlling costs and improving the quality of our health care system.
A new toolkit showcases how primary care practices are involving patients in quality improvement efforts as part of Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s signature effort to lift the quality of care in targeted communities across the United States.
The National Bone Health Alliance (NBHA), a public-private partnership bringing together the expertise and resources of 49 member organizations from the private and non-profit sectors (in addition to four federal government liaisons) to collectively advance bone health and prevent disease, recently announced the launch of Fracture Prevention Central (www.FracturePreventionCentral.org).
A community psychiatry researcher reflects on the treatment she received in her youth for post-traumatic stress disorder and depression—and calls for more recovery-oriented care to be available nationwide.
I was 14 and growing up in a small suburban town in Kentucky with my parents and 16-year-old brother. I loved school and I loved the arts, wandering my high school’s hallways with a paintbrush stuck in my messy ponytail.
The Millbank Report is a well-researched summary of the state of the evidence about integrated primary care. It reviews the different ways in which Behavioral Health and Primary Care can collaborate, discussed the pros and cons of each approach and made on how to approach integration in these challenging fiscal times. It provides specific suggestions for how to increase collaboration, lists possible incremental steps toward integration and factors to consider when selecting how best to implement integration into an individual practice.
The National Strategy for Quality Improvement in Health Care (the National Quality Strategy) sets a course for improving the quality of health and health care for all Americans. It serves as a blue print for health care stakeholders across the country – patients, providers, employers, health insurance
