Regional Work

• Overview
• { Regional Work }
  • Medical Homes DC
  • Group Medical Visits
  • Regional Breast Healthcare Improvement Initiative
• Websites and Other Resources

There are many efforts underway in the region to provide low income and uninsured residents with primary care medical homes.

For example –

• In the District of Columbia, DCPCA is committed to the patient-centered medical home model of care. In 2004, it launched Medical Homes DC, an initiative to expand safety net health care services for DC residents with a focus on improving quality of care and increasing efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Through a public-private partnership between the DC Government and health philanthropy, over $50 million has been invested to support capital projects that replace aging facilities and bring new facilities to underserved areas, build health information technology/electronic medical records to improve care management and coordination, and fund other quality improvement programs. In 2011, DCPCA is culminating its Quality Transformation Series, a 3-year, $1.5 million program funded by CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield that develops and sustains quality improvement initiatives in 11 community health centers. Through these initiatives, community health centers have established measurement strategies and collected data to drive decisions that sustain and support care. Starting in November 2010, DCPCA is launching a serires of informational summits on the patient-centered medical home. The first summit discussed how the patient-centered medical home yields improvements in health outcomes, patient experience, reduction of costs, and integration of health information technology.

• In Montgomery County, Maryland, the Primary Care Coalition works with public/private partners to provide high-quality, accessible, equitable, efficient, and outcome-driven health care services for low-income, uninsured County residents. It administers Montgomery Cares, a county-funded public/private partnership that supports a network of community-based clinics, (Community HealthLink Clinics) that provide a primary care medical home to the county’s low income uninsured adults. PCC also administers the county’s Care for Kids which provides health care to uninsured low-income children up to age 19 who are not eligible for other state or federal health programs. PCC’s Centers for Health Care Access, Medicine Access, Health Improvement, and Community-based Informatics work to support comprehensive, quality, and patient-centered medical homes.

• In Northern Virginia, the leading primary care safety net providers in the areas 5 health district formed the Northern Virginia Health Services Coalition to work together to provide a continuum of high quality, culturally appropriate health care services for low-income people in Northern Virginia.  They meet regularly to share promising practices and approaches they are taking to providing medical homes to their clients.

• In Prince George's County, Maryland there is no county-wide primary care coalition like there is in DC, Montgomery County or Northern Virginia. The county has an acknowledged shortage of primary care. Greater Baden Medical Services, Inc., the only Federally Qualified Health Center in the county, serves as a medical home for its clients. The Health Action Forum of Prince George’s County seeks to bring the voice of the consumer the public health policy with a mission to work towards the elimination of health disparities and 100% access to health care.