Two affiliated health plans in the greater New York metropolitan area will use a Commonwealth Fund grant to conduct a two-year pilot of the Medical Home model, which supports extensive use of IT across clinical settings to better coordinate care, Health Data Management reports.
Group Health and Health Plan of New York will launch the Medical Home High Value Network to help adult primary care practices become Medical Home Practices. The model supports evidence-based medicine through decision-support tools and performance measurements. In addition, patients will have electronic access to their providers via e-mail and appointment calendars, as well as access to clinical decision-support tools.
Participating physician practices will be separated into a support group of 25 primary care practices and a comparison, or control group, of 25 practices. The support group will be paid using revised payment methods and will receive technical support for office redesign and care management.
The success of the Medical Home model will be measured through claims and performance quality measures for procedures and information including:
- Mammograms;
- Diabetes tests and cervical cancer screenings;
- Outcomes for diabetes and hypertension; and
- Efficiency data and patient satisfaction scores.
The Ethel Donahue Center for Translating Research Into Practice at the University of California will assess the pilot, and results will be published at the end of the two-year project (
Health Data Management, 1/10).