Support for the concept of the patient-centered medical home continues to grow, with the latest nod coming from the federal Advisory Committee on Training in Primary Care Medicine and Dentistry.
The committee, which provides policy advice to Congress and the Health and Human Services secretary, is finalizing a report that recommends that policy makers invest in training physicians on how to operate within the medical home model and evaluate the health outcomes associated with this model of care.
A failure to invest in the medical home model now will impair efforts to improve quality and control costs, according to the committee.
The United States “faces a watershed moment when it can restructure health care to focus on prevention and coordinated, comprehensive care through the adoption of this promising new model of care,” the committee wrote.
The report calls for changes to Title VII, Section 747 of the Public Health Service Act. For example, the committee is recommending that the HHS secretary expand the authority of that law to include directing continuing medical education programs to train currently practicing physicians in aspects of the medical home.
The report also calls on the HHS secretary to promote dissemination of the best practices related to providing a medical home that have been identified by researchers.
Other draft recommendations from the committee include the following:
▸ Funding pilot programs that contribute to the development and evaluation of the medical home, with priority given to those programs that address the needs of underserved populations.
▸ Developing measures to evaluate the medical home in terms of accessibility and patient satisfaction, health status, quality of care, health disparities, and cost.
▸ Implementing key components of the medical home model in academic medical centers, in an effort to prepare faculty educators.
The committee's next report, which is due out in May 2009, will explore how primary care training would need to be redesigned to further the concept of the medical home.
Specifically, the report is expected to focus on the difficulties in hand-offs between pediatric specialists and adult medicine specialists when patients with chronic illnesses reach adulthood. In addition, they will consider workforce issues and medical school debt.