PCMH and primary care is but one part of an integrated, optimized and cost-efficient health system
By Chris Valerian, DO, MMM – Executive Medical Director, Health Integrated

I had the distinct pleasure of speaking with Julie Barnes, the Deputy Director of the Health Policy Program at the New America Foundation[1] .  We spoke about many different things including healthcare reform, her perceptions on how the debate is going, what, if anything, might be resolved once the discussions are over and the like.  Ms. Barnes shared her thoughts on how the stimulus money would be used to assist in building the healthcare infrastructure in the form of EMR, which in turn, will and can be used to fuel healthcare efficiencies in both the near term and longer term.  All of this was very intellectually stimulating regardless of your political persuasion.  Since the healthcare reform challenge is still in debate, it is therefore in flux and the likely outcome is anyone’s guess at this point.  More on this as it develops. (more…)

Recent examples continue to spotlight the benefits of PCMH implementation
By Chris Valerian, DO, MMM – Executive Medical Director, Health Integrated

And the beat goes on…  As we have seen from some of the previous examples of successful PCMHs, there are both patient and financial successes that continue to be seen through recent implementations.  This is particularly enlightening to me in the context of the current healthcare debate.  As we have heard, not to mention many of us experiencing, the costs of healthcare continue to go up with no seemingly easy tether on cost.  This said, it seems prudent to consider alternatives that are built on the best of all worlds, namely, keep the great healthcare outcomes while reducing the cost.    This seems so simple, yet so difficult to propagate.  I’m not sure that a full healthcare system overhaul is the answer.  I say this in the context of witnessing real-time transformation of portions of healthcare with simple, easy to execute and extremely effective solutions – like PCMH.  Let me share some of the latest. (more…)