1 How Do I Judge the “Medical Homeness ” of My Practice?

ABSTRACT: A Medical Home provides care to infants, children and adolescents that is accessible, continuous, comprehensive, family-centered, coordinated, compassionate and culturally effective. These desirable characteristics are often difficult to assess in ones practice. A recent policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics provides clarification and functional definitions of these characteristics. Tools and resources are available to aid physicians, clinic administrators and client-families in assessing their clinic’s compliance with Medical Home characteristics, as part of a long-term quality improvement program for their practice. The most common response of general pediatricians when asked if they provide a Medical Home for their patients is “I do that. ” However, when they review the desirable characteristics of Medical Home as described in the revised American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) policy statement,1 they quickly begin to realize that they may need to rethink that answer. A Medical Home is not a building, house or hospital, but rather an approach to providing health care services in a high-quality and cost-effective manner. Seven cor