Eight Boston area medical practices will participate in a three-year medical home pilot program to establish team-based healthcare delivery in Massachusetts, reports the Boston Globe. Overall, 46 primary-care medical practices will join the state-wide Patient-Centered Medical Home Initiative in an attempt to improve quality of care and reduce healthcare spending.
Under the program, a primary-care doctor will lead a team of providers in coordinating all aspects of a patient's care--from management of chronic conditions and visits to specialists to hospital admissions and reminders to schedule checkups, notes the Globe.
"The hope is that this would allow us to provide care the way physicians want to provide care and the way patients want to receive it,'' Dr. Scott Early, chief medical officer of Lynn Community Health Center, told the newspaper.
The 46 practices also will receive individual on-site coaching, assistance in establishing patient registries and training through a learning collaborative to help transition their practices into patient-centered medical homes.
Meanwhile, primary-care practices in Kansas also are embracing the trend of patient-centered, team-based care with their own three-year medical home project--the Kansas Patient Centered Medical Home Initiative--to begin mid-2011. "This project is a response to local needs for improved healthcare and lower costs," said Kansas Academy of Family Physicians President Dr. Jen Brull, according to AAFP News Now.
For more:
- read the Boston Globe article
- check out the AAFP News Now article