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New White Papers Focus on Patient Centered Medical Homes
Mathematica Researchers Describe Ways to Promote Better Patient Engagement
and Mental Health Care Delivery; Improve Care from HITECH Act
Media Advisory: August 2, 2010
Contact: Cheryl Pedersen, (609) 275-2258
Issue: The patient centered medical home (PCMH) is increasingly recognized as a way to reform the health care system. Adopting new strategies to deliver primary care, the cornerstone of the medical home concept, may enhance quality and reduce costs by improving prevention and continuity of care. These strategies can also reduce unnecessary treatments, avoidable hospitalizations, duplicative testing, and other inefficiencies.
Mathematica Policy Research recently completed three white papers for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) examining how PCMH can promote patient and family engagement in primary care. The papers describe ways for primary care practices to improve delivery of mental health care. They also examines the role of the Health Information Technology and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act in developing and supporting medical homes.
Findings:
- “Engaging Patients and Families in the Medical Home” offers policymakers and researchers insights into engaging patients and families. It presents a framework for conceptualizing opportunities for engagement, reviews the evidence base for these activities, describes examples of existing efforts, suggests key lessons for the future, and discusses implications for policy and research. This paper was written by staff from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), Mathematica, and AHRQ.
- “Integrating Mental Health Treatment Into the Patient Centered Medical Home” identifies conceptual similarities in and differences between PCMH and current strategies used to deliver mental health treatment in primary care. Even though adoption of PCMH has the potential to enhance delivery of mental health treatment, program and policy changes are needed to facilitate integration of high quality mental health treatment within PCMH.
- “Necessary But Not Sufficient: The HITECH Act and Health Information Technology’s Potential to Build Medical Homes” examines how HITECH could be harnessed to help practices implement technology and support key principles of PCMH.
White Papers:
"Engaging Patients and Families in the Medical Home.” Sarah Hudson Scholle, Phyllis Torda, Deborah Peikes, Esther Han, and Janice Genevro, June 2010.
"Integrating Mental Health Treatment Into the Patient Centered Medical Home." Thomas Croghan and Jonathan D. Brown, June 2010.
"Necessary But Not Sufficient: The HITECH Act and Health Information Technology’s Potential to Build Medical Home." Lorenzo Moreno, Deborah Peikes, and Amy Krilla, June 2010.
About Mathematica: Mathematica Policy Research, a nonpartisan research firm, provides a full range of research and data collection services, including program evaluation and policy research, survey design and data collection, research assessment and interpretation, and program performance/data management, to improve public well-being. Its clients include federal and state governments, foundations, and private-sector and international organizations. The employee-owned company, with offices in Princeton, N.J., Ann Arbor, Mich., Cambridge, Mass., Chicago, Ill., Oakland, Calif., and Washington, D.C., has conducted some of the most important studies of health care, disability, education, international, family support, employment, nutrition, and early childhood policies and programs.
About the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ): AHRQ is the lead federal agency charged with improving the quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of health care for all Americans. As one of 12 agencies within the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. AHRQ supports health services research that will improve the quality of health care and promote evidence-based decisionmaking.