Dr. Forough Farizani’s approach
THE PATIENT CENTERED / MEDICAL HOME ENVIRONMENT
The five core attributes of the Hillcroft Physicians Medical Home Environment are:
Patient-centered: Hillcroft Physicians, supports patients in learning to better manage their own care, and ensures that patients, families, and caregivers are fully included in the development and management of their care plans. It also encourages them to participate in quality improvement efforts.
Comprehensive: Hillcroft Physicians offers whole-person care and its team of providers are accountable for the patient’s physical and behavioral/mental health needs, including prevention and wellness, acute care, and chronic care.
Coordinated: Hillcroft Physicians ensures that care is appropriately organized across all elements of the broader health care system, including specialty care, hospitals, home health care, community services, and long-term care supports.
Accessible: Hillcroft Physicians delivers accessible services with shorter waiting times, enhanced in-person hours with providers, 24/7 electronic or telephone access, and alternative methods of communication through health information technology (HIT).
Committed to Quality and Safety: Hillcroft Physicians. demonstrates commitment to quality improvement and the use of data and health information technology (HIT) and other tools to assist patients and families in making informed decisions about their health.
It is well known that for most Americans, primary care serves as the entry point and touchstone of the health care system, delivering and coordinating care for patients and families, with an emphasis on promoting population health and managing chronic illness. As such, primary care is well positioned to help repair and optimize our broken care delivery system. Hillcroft Physicians is aware of this opportunity and takes seriously its obligation to operate as a Medical Home to all its patients regardless of their cultural or financial situation.
Hillcroft Physicians strives to achieve the clinical performance and philosophical standards of a Medical Home every day, with every patient.
These include:
Personal provider: Each patient has an ongoing relationship with a personal provider trained to provide first contact, continuous and comprehensive care.
Provider directed medical care: The personal provider leads a team of individuals at the practice level who collectively take responsibility for the ongoing care of patients.
Whole person orientation: The personal provider is responsible for providing for all the patient’s health care needs or taking responsibility for appropriately arranging care with other qualified professionals if necessary. This includes care for all stages of life; acute care; chronic care; preventive services; and end of life care.
Whenever the treatment plan prescribed by Hillcroft Physicians cannot address the wholistic medical needs of the patient because of significant chronic and complex conditions, these patients are referred to other healthcare providers that can provide the appropriate specialized care needed. This effective care coordination is a crucial part of being a Medical Home.
The Medical Home relies on a team of providers to meet a patient’s health care needs. Studies have shown that the medical home model’s attention to the “whole-person and integration of all aspects of health care” offer potential to improve physical health, behavioral health, access to community-based social services and management of chronic conditions.
Hillcroft Physicians entire provider team is available to and is typically involved in the care of the patients seen. This enables the patient’s care to be assessed and consistently managed by all the providers present. This same “team-approach” is true for the clinic staff support needed to ensure that all aspects of the care delivery process are well coordinated.
Hillcroft Physicians ensures that all care is coordinated and integrated across all elements of the complex health care system (e.g., subspecialty care, hospitals, home health agencies, nursing homes) and the patient’s community (e.g., family, public and private community- based services). Care is facilitated using information technology, health information exchanges and other means to assure that patients get the indicated care when and where they need and want it in a culturally and linguistically appropriate manner.