An article published in the November/December 2010 Connecticut State Medical Society’s journal, Connecticut Medicine, describes how primary care physicians in that state have begun to adopt features of the medical home. Of the 498 physicians surveyed, 16% were solo practitioners and another 49% practiced in groups of two to four physicians. 57% of the physicians surveyed use open or advanced access scheduling, 18% have primary care teams, 11% use nurse case managers, 33% use patient disease registries and 39% use electronic medical records. There were differences in these rates of adoption by practice size and type of primary care specialty (internists, family physicians and pediatricians). The authors also describe both barriers and facilitators to increasing the adoption of these features of medical homes among the state’s physicians, including past and ongoing pilot programs. There are important lessons from this data for physicians nationwide as the concept of medical homes is further developed and implemented under national health care reform.
Ignatius Bau 