The term medical home has had quite the history! According to the PCPCC, Patient Centered Primary Care Collaborative, patient centered medical home is definitely not a new concept; even as far back as 1967, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), actually introduced the term “medical home” (PCMH, 2015). Now, today’s term patient-centered medical home has evolved to define “a model of primary care excellence that is a patient-centered, comprehensive, coordinated, accessible, and committed to quality and safety” (PCMH, 2015). According to the government website, AHRQ, Agency for Healthcare Research and Qaulity, they define patient-centered medical home as a model which “holds promise as a way to improve health care in America by transforming how primary care is organized as well as delivered.” The AHRQ also states that the term medical home as not just a place, but also as a model of the “organization of primary care that delivers the core functions of primary health care” (PCPCC, 2016). When cultivating this type of medical home there are five functions and attributes that are involved: comprehensive care, patient centered, coordinated care, accessible services, and Quality and Safety (PCPCC, 2016).
Overall, it comes down to this: the primary goal of the patient-centered medical home, according to the AHRQ, is to improve the quality as well as the outcome of care, which is what patient’s are looking for. The medical world seems to always be looking for ways to make health care better or rather patient care. In 2006, according to the American Medical Association, AMA, two doctors conceived the term Accountable Care Organization (AMA, 2015). The ACO consists of a group of physicians, other health care professionals as well as hospitals who come together to correlate excellent care for Medicare patients (CMS, 2015). The goal of the ACO is to collaborate to make