Building a Patient-Centered Medical Home at the University of VirginiaIn keeping with our vision to transform how we care for patients, we are transforming our main teaching practice into a Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH). Our goal is to fulfill the criteria to qualify as a Level 3 Medical Home from the National Committee on Quality Assurance (NCQA) by June 30, 2011. What is a Patient-Centered Medical Home?
The PCMH is a model of care that builds on the values that family medicine is built upon - a strong physician-patient relationship, continuity, first contact for problems, and caring for the whole person, to name a few. In the PCMH model the caring and expertise of the family physician is enhanced by:
• Providing patients with increased access to care Why is the PMCH important?The PCMH is seen as a critical component of reforming our health delivery system - improving access and quality, while helping to control costs. It is therefore a key component of every health reform bill introduced in both the House and the Senate. We believe it will also help to re-vitalize family medicine, and help us to better fulfill the promise of our specialty for patients and physicians. As we become a PCMH, you will learn how to make these changes in your own future practices - we anticipate that many of our graduates will need to be change agents in their future practices and communities.
How is UVA working towards becoming a PCMH?We have joined the "I3" project - a learning collaborative with more than 20 residencies in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. We share information on best practices with each other, and meet regularly to learn not only how we can achieve our goal for our practice, but also how we can teach these concepts to residents. We have recently undergone a change in leadership in our practice, as well. Dr. Gazewood has assumed the role of Medical Director of our Primary Care Center practice in order to better align the teaching and clinical missions of our residency program. |