A medical home is an approach to providing comprehensive and high quality primary care. A medical home provides the following:
- Accessibility – Care is easy to obtain, including geographic access and insurance accommodation.
- Patient-Centered – The patient is recognized and acknowledged ensuring that all medical decisions are made in true partnership between you and your medical team.
- Continuous – The same primary care clinician cares for you providing assistance and support to transition from each phase of life.
- Comprehensive – Preventive, primary, and specialty care are provided.
- Coordinated – A care plan is created in partnership with you and your family and communicated with all health care clinicians, necessary community agencies and organizations.
- Compassionate – Genuine concern for your well-being are emphasized and addressed.
- Culturally Effective – You and your family’s culture, language, beliefs, and traditions are recognized, valued, and respected.
A medical home is not a building or place; it extends beyond the walls of a clinical practice. A medical home builds partnerships with clinical specialists, families and community resources. The medical home recognizes you as the center of your own health care emphasizing a partnership between you and health care professionals.
Patient-Centered Medical Home, or PCMH, is an active approach to health care to establish a “medical home” for everyone. Care is coordinated by your individual medical provider, who is leading a team of medical professionals that provide continuous comprehensive and personalized prevention-based healthcare.
Why PCMH? We are leading the way in St. Croix because we are committed to providing you greater, faster access to your healthcare team. Through effective communication and building continuous healing relationships, you will be receiving greater resources to help care for yourself and your family.
The key is continuity! You shouldn’t have to worry about seeing a different provider each time you visit the clinic. Every effort will be made to ensure you are cared for by the same health team (medical assistant, nurse, and providers) every time you visit the clinic.
Improved continuity means better medical management. We strive to meet your medical needs through your PLESSEN MEDICAL HOME TEAM. If your usual provider is not available you can be sure that another team member will have full access to your records and will provide the same level of care you get from your usual provider. Our care is comprehensive, but if you need specialized care that we cannot provide we have a network of specialists that we can refer you to for that care and then we will continue the recommended care when you return to our practice.
PCMH focuses on the patient being the center of healthcare and the driver of care rather than the passive recipient. Care that is truly patient-centered considers patients’ cultural traditions, personal preferences, and values, family situations and lifestyle. It makes the patient and their loved ones an integral part of the care team who collaborate with health care professionals in making clinical decisions Patient-centered care puts responsibility for important aspects of self-care and monitoring in our patients’ hands – along with the tools and support you need to carry out that responsibility. Patient-centered care ensures that transitions between providers and healthcare settings are respectful, coordinated and efficient.