4 SMCS primary care practices earn quality care recognition

Kim Austin, director of Ludlow Health Center and Chester Family Medicine; Josh Dufresne, MBA, chief of Practice Operations; Moira Ennen, director of Rockingham Medical Group; and Lauren Boreham, RN, director of Charlestown Family Medicine.

SPRINGFIELD

The National Committee for Quality Assurance announced that four of Springfield Medical Care Systems’   primary care practices have received NCQA Patient-Centered Medical Home Level 3 Recognition for using evidence-based, patient-centered processes that focus on highly coordinated care and long‐term, participative relationships.

The primary care practices that received this special designation are Charlestown Family Medicine, Charlestown, NH; and, in Vermont, Chester Family Medicine; Ludlow Family Medicine; and Rockingham Medical Group in Bellows Falls. Springfield Health Center is scheduled for review this spring.

The NCQA Patient-Centered Medical Home is a model of primary care that combines teamwork and information technology to improve care, patients’ experience of care and to reduce costs. Medical homes foster ongoing partnerships between patients and their personal clinicians, instead of approaching care as the sum of episodic office visits. Each patient’s care is overseen by clinician-led care teams that coordinate treatment across the health care system. Research shows that medical homes can lead to higher quality and lower costs, and can improve patient and provider reported experiences of care.

“NCQA Patient-Centered Medical Home Recognition raises the bar in defining high-quality care by emphasizing access, health information technology and coordinated care focused on patients,” said NCQA President Margaret E. O’Kane. “Recognition shows that the SMCS practices have the tools, systems and resources to provide their patients with the right care, at the right time.”

To earn recognition, which is valid for three years, all four of these SMCS practices demonstrated the ability to meet the program’s key elements, embodying characteristics of the medical home. NCQA standards aligned with the joint principles of the Patient-Centered Medical Home established with the American College of Physicians, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Osteopathic Association.