Question

What do you believe are the strengths and challenges of the Patient Centered Medical Home? Please explain why?

Answer 1

PCMH can decrease expenditure and generate a substantial return on investment. Colorado's Multi-Payer PCMH Pilot cut emergency department visits by 15% and inpatient admissions by 18%, while attaining a return on investment of $4.5 for every dollar spent. In Maryland, the PCMH program saved $98 million and increased performance scores by almost 10% in just one year.

The first stage is one of the most difficult: to turn unwilling patients into committed partners in their own care. Engaged patients are more likely to turn to their primary care provider instead of the emergency room, or to take their medication properly to handle the circumstances that might otherwise affect them in the hospital. In order to generate a culture of commitment, suppliers must listen to the voice of the patient and comprehend their population in order to implement efficient approaches to maintain a favorable discussion.

One of the main characteristics of the PCMH model is the capacity and need to monitor patients between appointments as carefully as they do when they enter the office. A advanced health IT infrastructure is needed to provide automated patient reminders, exchange health information with other care continuum partners, and undertake risk stratification that enables suppliers to allocate resources to the needs of their clients. These techniques have long been connected with better quality of care and improved patient safety, but they involve a level of dedication to data governance and economic resources that can be daunting.

It is no secret that it is very hard to achieve a completely integrated, interoperable, efficient health IT ecosystem with all the bells and whistles of clinical decision support and predictive analytics. It's very costly, too. Providers may want to invest a little bit in infrastructure at a moment that makes good money sense, but may also drag the process down for longer than is acceptable.

Providers who explore the PCMH are probably already interested in applying the industry's best practices to their own organisation. At its heart, the PCMH "presents a different paradigm for the delivery of health care," says the AAAHC, which can be both a very good and a very difficult one. The PCMH principles align with many of the other quality improvement and payment reform initiatives promoted by CMS and other specialist groups, and can place healthcare organisations to be more successful in a financially difficult environment. Providers can never go wrong in creating greater patient relationships, concentrating on patient-centered care, and streamlining workflows.