Health network launches storefront medical home

A north Texas healthcare system is taking the medical home idea to a storefront, taking over a largely vacant Arlington strip mall to provide one-stop shopping for a range of healthcare services.

Fort Worth-based JPS Health Network is leasing space in the strip mall, which used to house an Albertson's grocery store, from Tarrant County, reports CBS 11. The medical home will house doctors, pharmacists, radiology and other diagnostic services, and a vision care center, according to the report.

"Having centered care, a centered facility where you can get two or three different exams, you can get your pharmacy pick up all there, it just makes it much better for people to get health care," Robert Earley, CEO of county-funded JPS Health Network, told CBS 11.

The medical home center is expected to open by October 2014 and could serve as a model for similar JPS facilities in the future, according CBS 11. Civic leaders hope the medical home promotes economic development in the area, helping fill other vacant spaces in the shopping center and surrounding area.

Among other benefits, medical homes can cut emergency room visits by up to 70 percent and hospital readmissions by 40 percent, according to an analysis of 46 medical home initiatives by Washington, D.C.-based Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative.

The storefront format is among several options for establishing a medical home.

"There's no one way to set up a medical home or one way for paying a medical home," Laura Etchen, partner at healthcare consulting company The Chartis Group in Chicago, told attendees at the American College of Healthcare Executives' annual meeting last year, FierceHeathcare previously reported.

Medical home payment models can vary, ranging from pay-for-performance or gain sharing to global primary care payment, she noted.

For more:
- read the CBS 11 report
- check out the PCPCC analysis