| Specialty Healthcare Organizations Endorse Joint Principles Of PCMH
More than a dozen specialty healthcare organizations
joined the four major primary care physicians’ professional
groups to endorse the seven-point Joint Principles of the
Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH).
The PCMH offers the benefits of a personal physician
with a whole-person orientation who accepts overall responsibility for
the care of the patient and leads a team that provides enhanced access
to care,improved coordinated and integrated care, and increased efforts
to ensure safety and quality.
The Joint Principles describe the characteristics of a
practice-based care model for providing comprehensive primary care for
children, youth and adults in a healthcare setting.
The PCMH facilitates partnerships between individual
patients and their personal physicians and –when appropriate
– the patient’s family.
The announcement of the endorsements was made today at a
Stakeholders Meeting of the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative
(PCPCC), a group dedicated to promoting the establishment of the Joint
Principles. In addition to physicians and medical students,
PCPCC’s membership consists of national employers and their
associations, healthcare quality advocacy groups, academic centers and
consumer advocacy groups in supporting the PCMH.
The Joint Principles were released in March 2007 by the
American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), the American Academy of
Pediatrics (AAP), the American College of Physicians (ACP) and the
American Osteopathic Association (AOA), which together represent some
333,000 physicians.
The pediatricians, family physicians, internists and
osteopathic physicians represented by the four organizations provide
the vast majority of primary care services to children, adolescent and
adult patients in the United States.
The PCPCC received reports from its various
collaborative centers on their work and their goals for future
development. Included was a report on the continuing establishment of
PCMH demonstration projects throughout the country in both private and
public sectors.
The Joint Principles define key characteristics of the PCMH:
- Personal physician – each patient has an
ongoing relationship with a personal physician trained to provide first
contact, continuous and comprehensive care.
- Physician-directed medical practice –
the personal physician leads a team of individuals at the practice
level who collectively take responsibility for the ongoing care of
patients.
- Whole person orientation – the personal
physician is responsible for providing for all the patient’s
healthcare needs or taking responsibility for appropriately arranging
care with other qualified professionals. This includes care for all
stages of life; acute care; chronic care; preventive services; and
end-of-life care.
Care is coordinated and/or integrated across all
elements of the complex healthcare system (e.g., subspecialty care,
hospitals, home health agencies, nursing homes) and the patient’s
community (e.g., family, public and private community-based services).
Care is facilitated by registries, information technology, health
information exchange and other means to assure that patients get the
indicated care when and where they need and want it in a culturally and
linguistically appropriate manner.
The Joint Principles state that quality and safety are hallmarks of the PCMH.
The statement features eight sub-points highlighting
specific responsibilities, education, decision making, technology,
participation and other necessary elements to improve quality and
safety.
The Joint Principles also spell out a proposed payment framework for the PCMH.
This framework would reflect the value of physician care
management work that falls outside of a face-to-face visit. It would
pay for services associated with coordination of care, support adoption
and use of health information technology for quality improvement and
support provision of enhanced communication access.
It would also recognize the value of physician work
associated with remote monitoring of clinical data using technology,
allow for separate fee-for-service payments for face-to-face visits,
and recognize case mix differences in the patient population being
treated within the practice.
The 13 organizations newly endorsing the Joint Principles are:
- The American Academy of Chest Physicians
- The American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine
- The American Academy of Neurology
- The American College of Cardiology
- The American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians
- The American College of Osteopathic Internists
- The American Geriatrics Society
- The American Medical Directors Association
- The American Society of Addiction Medicine
- The American Society of Clinical Oncology
- The Society for Adolescent Medicine
- The Society of Critical Care Medicine
- The Society of General Internal Medicine
Address: American Academy of Family Physicians, 11400 Tomahawk Creek Parkway, Leawood, KS 66211; (913) 906-6000, www.aafp.org.
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