WVU Healthcare’s Sleeth Family Medicine Center earns national recognition for patient-centered care
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) has announced that WVU Healthcare’s Clark K. Sleeth Family Medicine Center has received NCQA Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) Recognition for using evidence-based, patient-centered processes that focus on highly coordinated care and long‐term, participative relationships.
The NCQA Patient-Centered Medical Home is a model of primary care that combines teamwork and information technology to improve care, improve patients’ experience of care, and reduce costs. Medical homes foster ongoing partnerships between patients and their personal clinicians, instead of approaching care as the sum of episodic office visits. Each patient’s care is overseen by clinician-led care teams that coordinate treatment across the healthcare system. Research shows that medical homes can lead to higher quality and lower costs and can improve patient- and provider-reported experiences of care.
“NCQA level III PCMH Recognition is the highest level offered, the ‘gold standard,’” Dana King, M.D., chair of the WVU Department of Family Medicine, said. “This recognition distinguishes our Center as a patient-focused office that follows the latest medical evidence to guide care. It provides external validation to patients, insurers, and others that the Center’s providers deliver care of the highest quality and are committed to constant improvement.”
Karen Fitzpatrick, M.D., associate professor in the Department of Family Medicine and medical director for the Center’s patient-centered medical home, performance improvement, and ambulatory informatics, said becoming a PCMH required “hundreds of workflow changes over the past three years.”
“Every staff member has become involved in work to measure and improve our patient care quality. We have learned to work more effectively as a team, with shared responsibility for the patient’s outcomes,” Dr. Fitzpatrick, who is the program director for WVU’s Patient-Centered Medical Home Fellowship and is a NCQA PCMH certified content expert, said. “This honor validates that our team has successfully transformed our practice to deliver higher quality, patient-centered care.”
To earn recognition, which is valid for three years, the Sleeth Family Medicine Center demonstrated the ability to meet the program’s key elements, embodying characteristics of the medical home. NCQA standards are aligned with the joint principles of the Patient-Centered Medical Home established with the American College of Physicians, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Osteopathic Association.
To find clinicians and their practices with NCQA PCMH Recognition, visit http://recognition.ncqa.org.
About NCQA
NCQA is a private, non-profit organization dedicated to improving healthcare quality. NCQA accredits and certifies a wide range of healthcare organizations. It also recognizes clinicians and practices in key areas of performance. NCQA’s Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS®) is the most widely used performance measurement tool in healthcare. NCQA’s Web site (ncqa.org) contains information to help consumers, employers, and others make more informed healthcare choices.