The Bay Clinic Inc.’s Hilo Family Health Center, Keaau Family Health and Dental Center, and the Pahoa Family Health Center have received Patient Centered Medical Home Level 2 recognition from the National Committee of Quality Assurance.
The PCMH Recognition Program provides three levels of recognition and is an extension of NCQA’s highly regarded Physician Practice Connections Recognition Program. The PPC program was initiated in 2003 with the support from prestigious organizations such as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Commonwealth Fund, and the Bridge of Excellence.
The PCMH Recognition Program recognizes practices that successfully use systematic processes and information technology to enhance the quality of patient care. The PCMH model emphasizes a team-based approach focusing on care coordination, quality, and preventive care. The physician-lead team help make sure patients, particularly those with chronic illnesses, receive key tests, take medication as prescribed, and have access to tools and resources they need to stay well and live healthy lives.
As a medical home, Bay Clinic patients have an ongoing relationship with their personal primary care provider who leads a team at a single location that takes collective responsibility for the patient’s care, providing for the patient’s health care needs and arranging for appropriate care with other qualified clinicians.
“For the past several years we’ve been working to re-align our processes to a whole-person model of care that centers on a long-term physician-patient healing relationship. Through the active participation of our dedicated staff, we now focus on the patient’s entire health needs, not just a single condition,” said Harold Wallace, Bay Clinic CEO. “Achieving NCQA-PCMH Level 2 is a major accomplishment for Bay Clinic. We are serious about providing the best quality of care and we are always looking at effective ways to provide our patients with the care they need when they need it,” said Harold Wallace, Bay Clinic CEO.
The PCMH standards are closely aligned to the federal program called “Meaningful Use Requirements” that rewards clinicians for using health information technology to improve quality of care. In support of PCMH Level 3 requirements and Meaningful Use, Bay Clinic has significantly upgraded its health information technology tools such as electronic health records, electronic prescribing, an electronic patient registry and clinical decision support.
“We are now working towards Level 3 NCQA-PCMH recognition, which is the highest level attainable for a medical practice. Level 3 is the most stringent and difficult to achieve, but we are confident that we will be in a position to realize this goal by August of this year,” said Wallace.
Bay Clinic is a federally qualified health center and 501(c)3 organization with 180 employees in 10 locations in Hilo, Keaau, Pahoa, and Ka‘u. With over 21,000 patients served in 2013, Bay Clinic is committed to providing high quality, patient centered, comprehensive health care that is affordable, coordinated, culturally competent and community directed for all.
Learn more about Bay Clinic at www.bayclinic.org.
