October 31, 2023
The Patient-Centered Medical Home is a method of care that puts patients at the center of care and helps to build better relationships between patients and their clinical care teams.
To be recognized as a PCMH means that medical practices have made a commitment to providing care that is patient-centered, accessible, continuous, comprehensive and coordinated, and that focuses on quality and patient satisfaction, according to Dr. Tom Weida, chief medical officer for University Medical Center.
Weida discussed the six PCMH standards during an October UMC Mini Medical School presentation to The University of Alabama OLLI program: patient-centered access to care, team-based care, population health management, care management and support, care coordination and transitions, and performance measures and quality improvement.
“In following these six standards, the health-care team gets to know and manage their patients’ quality of care through what medications they need to take, what kind of chronic illnesses they have, the treatment goals needed for those illnesses and a schedule of their health care plans and needs for revision,” Weida said.
The Family Medicine and Pediatric clinics at University Medical Center in Tuscaloosa certified by the National Committee for Quality Assurance as Patient-Centered Medical Homes. UMC-Northport is also certified as a PCMH by the NCQA.
The NCQA works to improve the quality of health care and recognizes medical practices as a Patient-Centered Medical Home through certification and recertification.
