Published by: Robert Trenschel on 11/8/2010 9:39:57 AM
We are excited to announce that the Harris County Hospital District is the first healthcare system in Houston and the first safety net provider in Texas to achieve Physician Practice Connections - Patient-Centered Medical Home designation by the National Committee for Quality Assurance. The prestigious recognition of the hospital district’s 12 health centers and AC Taylor School-Based Clinic is a major milestone in healthcare delivery for patients in the Houston area.
The term “medical home” describes a health care delivery site — in this instance, Harris County Hospital District's 12 health centers and its school-based clinic — where patients have an ongoing relationship with a personal physician who provides patient-centered, coordinated and high-quality care to patients.
Under the new medical home model, episodic care based on illnesses and patient complaints will be replaced with coordinated care and a long-term healing relationship with that facility and physician. Physicians work with a coordinated team to provide a patient with his ongoing primary and specialty care.
This designation represents over one year of a system-wide effort to transform to an environment with focus on the continuum of care. It was ‘thought provoking’ to determine whether we apply for recognition for 13 sites (with over 1 million visits annually) all at once or one at a time. We were confident in our systems, so we ultimately decided to apply for all of our sites at one time.
This achievement is important for the Harris County Hospital District because it provides us the framework to build on practices to focus all of our attention on our patient needs. We’re shifting the way we care for our patients and the way we do things by using evidence based guidelines to standardize how we manage chronic disease and right-sizing our services. The fact that our system is the first to achieve this recognition in the third largest county in the country is significant, and speaks to the fact that the safety net is alive and well in Houston.
During the second session of the Fellows program on Thursday, Nov. 11, in Washington, DC, Dr. Trenschel will share an NAPH member’s perspective on the challenges, lessons learned, and best practices in becoming an NCQA medical home.
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Robert J. Trenschel, D.O., M.P.H.
Senior Vice President/Administrator
Ambulatory Care Services
Harris County Hospital District
Phone: 713-566-6856
robert_trenschel@hchd.tmc.edu