Adoption of electronic medical records, increased investment by policy makers in primary care and health information technology, and more training to help clinicians make the transition to the patient-centered medical home are needed to realize the full potential of the medical home model, the researchers said.
At a daylong symposium on reinventing primary care hosted in Washington by Health Affairs, coauthor Dr. Eric B. Larson, executive director of the Group Health Research Institute, warned against “a treadmill-like mentality,” noting that before the prototype, the system's doctors “saw a lot of people but it didn't improve quality.”
Dr. Larson said the pilot medical home was designed to have “a continuous healing doctor-patient relationship as its core principle,” in addition to “proactive comprehensive care, efficiency, satisfaction, and effectiveness.”
Based on the results it saw with the pilot, Group Health plans to create medical homes in 26 clinics and to encourage the model's adoption among its contracted providers, Dr. Larson commented.