What is a ‘Patient Centered’ Medical Home?

By Linda Sturnot, FCP Health & Wellness Center Quality Improvement/Patient Services Administrator and Dr. Kirk Ritchie, FCP Health & Wellness Center Dental Director

On Aug. 15 and 16, 2011, the Forest County Potawatomi (FCP) Health & Wellness Center participated in a voluntary survey by the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC). AAAHC is a non-profit organization that assesses whether a facility meets compliance with established standards of care and the requirements of an accredited ‘Medical Home’.

Following the August survey, FCP Health and Wellness Center received a three-year accreditation award and first-time certification as a Medical Home.

So, what does this special certification as a Medical Home mean to you and your family? In a patient-centered Medical Home, a Care Team guides care in a continuous, accessible, comprehensive and coordinated manner. The patient is the center of the Care Team.  The Care Team is led by a physician (or dentist) of the patient’s choice. Family members and other caregivers may also be a central part of the team. The Care Team includes professionals inside the health center, and it may also include clinical and non-clinical professionals outside the facility who are directly involved in a person’s care. Seeing the same physician or dentist is beneficial to the patient so that the provider gets to know you as a person and your individual and family-health history.

The Care Team provides initial and routine assessments of the patient’s health status and places a high priority on preventative care, wellness, care coordination and chronic disease management to help patients get and stay healthy and make healthy lifestyle choices. The Medical Home is not a ‘gatekeeper’, but rather facilitates connections and removes barriers to other providers and services, as appropriate to the patient’s individual needs. The Medical Home works toward providing convenient access to your provider or his/her care team members whenever possible.

The patient-centered Medical Home fosters an environment of trust and respect. The patient-centered Medical Home ‘knows’ its patients and families and provides care that is whole person oriented and consistent with the patients’ unique needs and individual preferences.  The Care Team helps patients and others designated by the patient understand their health condition and how to manage their health by providing appropriate educational resources. Patients and clinicians are partners in making treatment decisions. The Medical Home works to provide unbiased, evidence-based information on all treatment options, including possible side effects, costs, benefits and risks of different options and alternative therapies, so the patient can make an informed decision and choose the treatment plan that reflects his/her personal preferences.

The Medical Home is a safe and friendly place the patient can call his/her ‘home’ for all his/her health-care needs.  The Medical Home is timely, effective, efficient, patient-centered and family-focused. To accomplish this, the FCP Health and Wellness Center regularly seeks out and encourages patient feedback on experiences related to care received and uses that information to drive improvement. It is our goal to provide you with quality health care and support your decision making related to your care based on your individual needs or those of your family members. If you haven’t visited us before, we invite you to schedule an appointment ((715) 478-4300) and see for yourself how this health care model can benefit you and your family.