PCPCC Stakeholders Meeting
New Resource Guide Spells Out Health IT's Role in Patient-Centered Medical Home
By James Arvantes
• Washington
5/6/2009
AAFP President Ted Epperly, M.D., tells the PCPCC stakeholders that electronic health records can integrate and coordinate data at the practice level.
The Patient Centered Primary Care Collaborative, or PCPCC, has issued a resource guide to help physician practices integrate health information technology, or health IT, into the patient-centered medical home, or PCMH.
The 42-page guide, "Meaningful Connections, A Resource Guide for Using Health IT to Support the Patient-Centered Medical Home," lists capabilities, functionalities and core examples to help physicians integrate health IT into their practices. According to the guide, the five core health IT capabilities practices will need to successfully support a connected PCMH are
- the ability to collect, share, manage and exchange relevant personal health information;
- communication among providers, patients and members of the patient's health care team during the delivery of care;
- the ability to collect, store, measure and report on the processes and outcomes of individual and population performance and quality of care measures;
- providers and practices who can engage in decision support processes for evidence-based treatments and tests; and
- consumers and patients who are informed and literate about their health care and medical conditions and who can appropriately manage their health with monitoring and coaching help from health care providers.
The resource guide, which was released during the PCPCC's stakeholder meeting here on April 28, links each of the five capabilities with a general functionality, as well as specific functionalities. For example, the ability to collect, share, manage and exchange relevant personal health information is tied to a list of specific functionalities needed to support the capability. These include the ability to store and access basic demographic, language performance, self-identified race and ethnicity, current and past diagnoses, previous visits, and basic clinical data.
PCPCC Endorses Guidelines for Medical Home Demonstrations
During its April 28 stakeholders meeting in Washington, the Patient Centered Primary Care Collaborative, or PCPCC, endorsed guidelines for medical home demonstration projects that were recently released by the AAFP, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Physicians, and American Osteopathic Association.
Between them, the organizations represent nearly 350,000 primary care physicians. They issued Guidelines for Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) Demonstration Projects to ensure that there is an "apples-to-apples comparison across projects and to avoid contamination by nonmedical home projects, e.g. disease management programs," said AAFP President Ted Epperly, M.D., of Boise, Idaho, in a press release (3-page PDF; About PDFs) issued by the organizations.
The guidelines contain 16 recommendations for structuring projects that test the PCMH model of health care. Recommendations are made on who should collaborate on projects, how participating practices should be chosen, what support should be provided to participating practices, how practices should be reimbursed, and how practices should analyze and distribute their results.
The groups developed the guidelines as a companion to the Joint Principles of the Patient-Centered Medical Home, (3-page PDF; About PDFs) which they released in 2007. The new guidelines provide direction for planning and testing demonstration projects to ensure they meet the joint principles for the PCMH and thus successfully test the key elements of the PCMH.
Between them, the organizations represent nearly 350,000 primary care physicians. They issued Guidelines for Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) Demonstration Projects to ensure that there is an "apples-to-apples comparison across projects and to avoid contamination by nonmedical home projects, e.g. disease management programs," said AAFP President Ted Epperly, M.D., of Boise, Idaho, in a press release (3-page PDF; About PDFs) issued by the organizations.
The guidelines contain 16 recommendations for structuring projects that test the PCMH model of health care. Recommendations are made on who should collaborate on projects, how participating practices should be chosen, what support should be provided to participating practices, how practices should be reimbursed, and how practices should analyze and distribute their results.
The groups developed the guidelines as a companion to the Joint Principles of the Patient-Centered Medical Home, (3-page PDF; About PDFs) which they released in 2007. The new guidelines provide direction for planning and testing demonstration projects to ensure they meet the joint principles for the PCMH and thus successfully test the key elements of the PCMH.
"Just as primary care is an integrator and coordinator of health care within our system, electronic medical records are the integrators and coordinators of data at the practice level," said AAFP President Ted Epperly, M.D., of Boise, Idaho, who spoke about the importance of health IT and the uses of the resource guide. "The two are very similar. They are aligned synergistically in terms of their intent, integration and coordination."
David Nace, M.D., vice president and chief medical officer of McKesson Corp., formally unveiled the resource guide during an address before the PCPCC stakeholders. He described health IT as a critical platform of the PCMH.
"It is really a platform of electronic tools that allow you to accomplish certain capabilities that align directly to the principles of the patient-centered medical home," said Nace, chair of the collaborative's Center for eHealth Information Adoption and Exchange, which developed the resource guide in collaboration with Health2 Resources. "In this document, we tease out what those critical capabilities are."
Nace said there is no one-size-fits-all health IT solution for all physician practices. "You need to be able to evolve over time how you get to whatever the end stage will be," he stressed. He added, however, that health IT should be used to engage the patient, the consumer and their caregivers.
Nace said appropriate health IT adoption reduces patient costs, increases both patient and physician satisfaction and leads to better outcomes. "There is a return on investment," he said, but he warned "using health IT without rethinking patient flow and physician work flow is a total waste."
"It is really a platform of electronic tools that allow you to accomplish certain capabilities that align directly to the principles of the patient-centered medical home," said Nace, chair of the collaborative's Center for eHealth Information Adoption and Exchange, which developed the resource guide in collaboration with Health2 Resources. "In this document, we tease out what those critical capabilities are."
Nace said there is no one-size-fits-all health IT solution for all physician practices. "You need to be able to evolve over time how you get to whatever the end stage will be," he stressed. He added, however, that health IT should be used to engage the patient, the consumer and their caregivers.
Nace said appropriate health IT adoption reduces patient costs, increases both patient and physician satisfaction and leads to better outcomes. "There is a return on investment," he said, but he warned "using health IT without rethinking patient flow and physician work flow is a total waste."
