Today, October 5, 2009, National Child Health Day in the United States.

This year’s topic is Medical Home, providing all children with a medical home. What is a medical home? It is a continuous, comprehensive, family-centered, coordinated, compassionate, and culturally effective way of providing medical care.
OK, that’s fine, but what does that mean to you as a parent, as a caregiver, or as a child? The American Academy of Pediatrics has made available PDF documents for you to learn more about medical homes. In the documents, you learn about what to expect from a pediatric team, how to make medical home …read more

Lately, I’ve been reading about a concept called “medical homes”.
Essentially, a primary care physician is being paid extra to coordinate a patient’s care through routine visits, screenings, specialists and hospitalizations.
According to this story about the medical home on ABC News:
The concept aims to change rushed doctor’s appointments and fragmented specialist care by creating patient care “teams,” which could include nurse practitioners, nutritionists or other medical staff. Medical homes also offer longer office hours, electronic medical records and same-day appointments.
The idea is that patients would turn to a trusted adviser, either the doctor or another team member, for preventive and routine …read more