Johns Hopkins, AAFP Launch CME Course to Help With PCMH Transformation

The AAFP has launched a new, asynchronous online CME course designed to help family physicians and other primary care health professionals transform their practices into patient-centered medical homes, or PCMHs.

The nine-module course, Practice Leaders in Medical Homes, provides physicians and other practice leaders with information about the competencies that are needed to smooth the evolution of their practices into medical homes.

The Roger C. Lipitz Center for Integrated Health Care at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, designed the course in cooperation with the AAFP; the Academy's practice redesign affiliate, TransforMED; the American Board of Internal Medicine; the American College of Physicians, or ACP; and the American Geriatrics Society. The Center for Teaching and Learning with Technology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is offering the course.

The CME program's nine modules are

Each module contains self-assessment questions, a short reading, a narrated presentation, a case study, a video vignette and a list of additional resources.

At the end of each module, learners answer multiple-choice questions related to the course objectives. For each completed module, family physicians receive a certificate and 1 Prescribed AAFP credit.

Mindi McKenna, Ph.D., M.B.A., director of the AAFP Division of Continuing Medical Education, co-authored the first module; Bruce Bagley, M.D., the Academy's medical director of quality improvement, served as an adviser for all nine modules. TransforMED CEO Terry McGeeney, M.D., M.B.A., also participated as an adviser on the project.

According to McKenna, the Lipitz Center recognized the Academy as a leader in promoting the PCMH model. "It was natural for them to reach out to us," she told AAFP News Now. Moreover, she said, the center's leadership saw the wisdom of collaborating with both the Academy and the ACP, as the nation's largest primary care physician organizations.

Add to that the fact that senior AAFP and TransforMED staff have been keeping abreast of the Lipitz Center's various primary care-oriented projects. "We know and respect the work they're doing in primary care, and it's compatible with our initiatives around the PCMH," said McKenna. So, when presented with the opportunity to team up with the Lipitz Center, she said, "We all agreed instantly it was the right thing to do."

For her part, Tracy Novak, M.H.S., project director of the center's National Medicare Medical Home Demonstration Technical Assistance Program, said the Lipitz Center chose to work with Academy for a variety of reasons.

For example, gaining AAFP CME accreditation for the project was an important goal, Novak told AAFP News Now. "We chose this because AAFP and TransforMED have extensive recent experience in providing practice leaders with continuing education on the process of transforming primary care practices into patient-centered medical homes," she said.

The course is available free to leaders of practices seeking recognition from the National Committee for Quality Assurance, or NCQA, and wishing to participate in the CMS Medicare Medical Home Demonstration project mandated under the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006. For those not seeking NCQA recognition, the cost of the course is $15 per module.

The course is part of a larger initiative of the Lipitz Center, which is headed by AAFP member Chad Boult, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., of Baltimore. With the help of a $1.4 million grant from the John A. Hartford Foundation, the center will help medical practices in eight states -- as yet unselected -- qualify for and participate in the Medicare Medical Home Demonstration.

Practices selected to participate in the demonstration will provide a set of comprehensive, coordinated PCMH services to Medicare beneficiaries with chronic medical conditions. The Lipitz Center will offer health care professionals in these practices additional information, education and technical support.