Patient Centered Medical Home and HRSA Region 9 Virtual Training Program
Community health centers are well positioned for Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) recognition for many reasons, and CPCA is committed to helping health centers with ongoing training and technical assistance. Most recently, CPCA hosted the HRSA Region 9 National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) PCMH Virtual Training Program for more than 280 health center staff. With our partner Health Center Controlled Networks and neighboring state Primary Care Associations in Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada and the Pacific Islands, we transitioned this program from a traditionally in-person three-day training to a week-long virtual experience and offered both the Introduction to PCMH Program: Foundational Concepts of the Medical Home and Advanced PCMH Program: Mastering the Medical Home Transformation programs.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, health centers are finding that a strong foundation in PCMH is positioning them for the pivot to telehealth because the PCMH model helps maintain team-based care, integration with behavioral health, care coordination and more. Even with all the hurdles in 2020, health centers are well-positioned to submit their annual reporting requirements to sustain their PCMH recognition because there are many commonalities with the PCMH standards and health center program. A recently published PCMH Toolkit for Health Centers outlines the benefits and how the PCMH recognition process aligns with the health center model, such as:
Alignment to HRSA Requirements: having procedures that are already included in HRSA statutory and regularly requirements, as well as similar reporting information in the Uniform Data System.
Alignment to Social Determinants of Health: health centers are working to reduce health disparities in their communities, the PCMH program supports this goal by helping health centers identify, assess, and address SDOH. Once specific SDOHs are recognized, the PCMH model helps centers manage patients who may benefit from a more comprehensive model of care that uses focused outreach.
Transforming California’s health center sites to PCMH-recognized organizations is crucial to success in an alternative payment, value-based care environment. This is because the PCMH model helps move toward the quadruple aim, which is to lower overall cost of care by improving patient outcomes, patient experience and care team well-being. Out of all California community health centers, 67% organizations are currently PCMH recognized. Our goal is to have all community health centers become recognized at 100% so that collectively, as a state, the health center movement will thrive with value-based care.
For health centers seeking coaching support for PCMH recognition with any accrediting body (AAAHC, The Joint Commission or NCQA), CPCA has a Practice Transformation Coaching program to guide health centers through the process. Our coaches have helped over 100 sites through our program that has 55 applications successfully supported to receive PCMH recognition. For any questions, please contact Peter Dy, Senior Program Coordinator of Care Transformation at pdy@cpca.org.