In 2009, five of the primary-care health centers in Wisconsin-based Dean Health System began to transform into an increasingly popular—but, to many, still somewhat fuzzy—feature of the new healthcare landscape: the “patient-centered medical home.”
The goals are noble: Orient and guide the patient through the healthcare system. Don’t repeat tests already performed. Keep costs down. Prevent illnesses that are, in fact, preventable. And reward doctors for doing so rather than encouraging visit after visit and test after test.
The hospitalists in the Dean system were brought late into the patient-centered medical home, or PCMH, project, but are now more involved:
- They participate in discussions about impending hospitalizations for patients to determine whether hospitalization is really needed;
- They make every effort to assign the same doctor to a patient each time the patient is hospitalized; and
- They also are part of admissions and discharges that are smoother due to efforts to keep information flowing and keep patients in formed.
There have been hiccups, though. Dean hasn’t tracked readmission rates, so it isn’t known whether they’ve improved. And satisfaction ratings from patients haven’t improved—in part, says Kevin Eichhorn, MD, chief of the hospitalist division at Dean, because patients don’t fully appreciate the changes that have been made, although there is an effort to tell them.
I believe the hospitalist will be right at the center of the model, along with the PCPs. In my opinion, the PCMH model will expand the hospitalist’s role outside the four walls of the hospital.
—Ken Simone, DO, SFHM, principal, Hospitalist and Practice Solutions
“But we’ve also only been doing this routinely for about a year,” Dr. Eichhorn says. “My hope is that, as we get better at it, we will see some improvement in terms of patient satisfaction with their hospitalization and improvement in other quality metrics as well.”
If hospitalists already working in a PCMH model are struggling with the changes, imagine the question marks for hospitalists who aren’t familiar with the concept yet (see “The Patient-Centered Medical Home: A Primer,” below). Joseph Ming Wah Li, MD, SFHM, immediate past president of SHM, says most hospitalists are not.
“I think it’s fair to say that most hospitalists lack awareness and insight into what the patient-centered medical home will mean for patients and for hospitalists,” he says.
But it’s a concept HM as a whole should bone up on quickly. As attention to reducing healthcare costs intensifies and the PCMH model becomes more commonplace, hospitalists’ roles within such practices will increase.
Some say hospitalists will be hired by primary-care practices that previously did not employ hospitalists. They might provide extra help during transitions by following patients as they are discharged to skilled rehab units or nursing homes. They also might provide preoperative histories for elective surgeries.
“I believe the hospitalist will be right at the center of the model, along with the PCPs [primary-care physicians],” says Ken Simone, DO, SFHM, a national hospitalist practice management consultant and principal at Maine-based Hospitalist and Practice Solutions. “In my opinion, the PCMH model will expand the hospitalist’s role outside the four walls of the hospital.”
Time to Prepare
Dr. Simone and others say that now is the time for hospitalists to begin exploring the PCMH model and its implications in their locales. HM groups should:
Familiarize themselves with the PCMH concept.
Although the model continues to evolve, the main components can be found in a 2007 joint statement by the American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Physicians, and American Osteopathic Association.1 They include the principles of a personal physician with whom the patient has an ongoing relationship; coordinated care across all elements of the healthcare system; better quality and safety; enhanced access to doctors and their teams; and a payment system that factors in the role of physicians and nonphysicians alike, as well as the role of technology and rewards for good outcomes.
