Health Care Homes (aka Medical Homes)
A "health care home," also called a "medical home," is an approach to primary care in which primary care providers, families and patients work in partnership to improve health outcomes and quality of life for individuals with chronic health conditions and disabilities.
The development of health care homes in Minnesota is part of the ground-breaking health reform legislation passed in May 2008. The legislation includes payment to primary care providers for partnering with patients and families to provide coordination of care.
- Find a certified health care home.
- Health care providers may apply to become certified as a health care home.
What's new?
- Registration is now open for Summer Institute 2013 - Dementia: The Disease of Our Generation.
Alzheimer’s disease affects virtually all of us—either as patients or as caregivers. The number of people with dementia is expected to skyrocket as the baby boom generation ages. Join us for a day of active learning on this critically important issue as we shape Minnesota’s response to the dementia epidemic. To register visit the Center on Aging website http://www.coa.umn.edu/
- March 14, 2013 Quarterly Meeting Agenda (PDF: 1 page/106KB)
Other documents from the meeting are available upon request.
Contact Health.HealthCareHomes@state.mn.us
- RARE Conversation:
Health Care Homes - Improving Care TransitionsHealth care home models have been implemented in primary care sites across the state and the country to assist patients with complex or chronic medical needs to work in partnership with their medical teams. The goal of the health care home model is to bring together comprehensive, coordinated, and patient-centered care, with a commitment to high quality and safety, all in one place. When these efforts are aligned, the health care home offers another positive strategy to support comprehensive efforts aimed at reducing avoidable readmissions. In this session we will explore how the health care home model is being used to facilitate care transitions and reduce readmissions.
- MDH certifies new health care homes
The Minnesota Department of Health has added 4 new clinics. There are now 224 certified health care homes.
The newly certified clinics are:
Essentia Health, Baxter
Essentia Health, Brainerd
Essentia Health, Moorhead
Essentia Health, West Duluth Clinic
- IMPORTANT ANNOUCEMENT -
Changes to Minnesota Community Measurement Submission requirements!
We are announcing that Certified HCH’s submitting data to MN Community Measurement will no longer need to submit the additional health care home data fields for all measures for HCH Certification. The additional HCH data fields have been removed from the measure specifications and will no longer be collected by MNCM. The data elements were originally recommended by the HCH Performance Measurement Workgroup to assist in the evaluations of HCH’s and benchmarking, however, there has been low uptake in the ability to report these fields so it has been decided these data fields will not be used in the HCH benchmarking or evaluation report due to the legislature in 2013. Please note that discontinuing the tiering only affects the submission of these data elements for the HCH quality measures and not the HCH payment methodology.
This decision is implemented immediately and the MNCM data collection guides have already been updated to reflect this. If you have questions about the technical aspects please contact Nathan Hunkins at MN Community Measurement, 612-454-4821.
- Health Care Homes is listed among Governor Dayton's top five "Building a Better Minnesota" initiatives
Gov. Mark Dayton released a list of accomplishments that his administration has made over the last two years in improving the health of all Minnesotans. On that list were five efforts spearheaded or coordinated by the Minnesota Department of Health in partnership with other state agencies, local public health agencies, communities and private sector partners.
Keeping Minnesotans Healthy with High Quality, Preventive Care (Health Care Homes) MDH’s health care home program is helping focus clinical care on helping patients meet their health goal. Gov. Mark Dayton has highlighted the program’s recent accomplishments.
- New Resources from Safety Net Medical Home Initiative Resources for Care Coordination and safety net PCMHs. Sign up for the E- Alert at http://www.safetynetmedicalhome.org/
- Certified clinics now serving 2 million Minnesotans
More than 2 million Minnesotans are served by clinics certified as health care homes, according to an MDH news release and the health care homes annual report that was submitted to the Minnesota Legislature in May.
- MDH is pleased to announce that Minnesota has been selected as one of eight states to participate in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Multi-Payer Advanced Primary Care Practice demonstration. Minnesota's participation in this demonstration is a big step towards achieving critical mass in the state's goal of transforming primary care through health care homes.
- The HealthPartners Research Foundation has received a US Department of Health & Human Services Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality grant to study the transformation of traditional primary care clinics in Minnesota to “health care homes,” also known as “medical homes.”
Leif Solberg, MD, senior investigator and director for care improvement research at the HealthPartners Research Foundation, received the $596,000 grant to conduct a two-year study, “Evaluating Statewide Transformation of Primary Care to Medical Homes.”
The Minnesota Departments of Health and Human Services will work with Solberg. With Minnesota Community Measurement and other partners, they will test whether clinics that have transformed their practice by implementing a health care home also see better quality of care of patients with diabetes or heart disease. They will then interview and survey successful clinics to identify key changes most important for transformation.
The study will also compare more and less transformed clinics in health care costs and utilization and patient and clinician/staff satisfaction.
