In 2012, White River Family Practice first became recognized as a Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) and the practice continues to maintain PCMH Recognition through NCQA’s Annual Reporting process. This advanced model of primary care emphasizes five principles:
- A patient-centered orientation supporting each patient’s self-care efforts and involvement of patients in the development of their care plans.
- Comprehensive, team-based care to meet the majority of each patient’s care needs including health maintenance, and both acute and chronic care.
- Coordination of care across our broader community’s healthcare system.
- Enhanced access to care.
- An organization-wide approach to quality and safety of care emphasizing measurement of care-provision and healthcare outcomes, and ongoing efforts to improve both elements in our practice.
The PCMH model emphasizes care coordination, vigorous use of our electronic health record to support quality care and timely communication with patients, and ongoing performance measurement. To achieve these goals, White River Family Practice is committed to become a Clinical Microsystem, defined as a small group of people who work together on a regular basis to provide care to discrete subpopulations of patients and having clinical and business aims, linked processes, a shared information environment, and producing performance outcomes.
A primary goal of our practice is to improve our patients’ self-confidence in their own health management. Informed and confident patients who feel connected to their primary care practice are better able to maintain excellent health and are less likely to need expensive or emergent healthcare services. Healthcare in the United States has become complex and expensive and is evolving to address those concerns and others. The providers at WRFP strive to provide our patients with up to date and evidence based medical care. WRFP believes that partnering with patients in their healthcare will help ensure that our entire patient population receives all recommended chronic and preventive care and that as many individuals as possible are given the opportunity to become skilled self-managers of their chronic conditions, risk factors, or preventive care needs.