Physician Practice Connections®-Patient-Centered Medical Home^TM standards emphasize enhanced care through patient-physician partnership

 Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, announced today that all 16 of its internal medicine practices, including the practice site in West Roxbury, have received the highest possible national accreditation as Level 3 Patient-Centered Medical Home from The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). NCQA’s Patient Centered Medical Home program recognizes physician practices that prioritize the strengthening of the physician-patient relationship, coordinate primary care for patients across multiple settings, and engage in a team approach to improving patient care. 

"The patient-centered medical home promises to improve health and health care," said NCQA President Margaret E. O'Kane. "The active, ongoing relationship between a patient and a clinician in medical homes fosters an all-too-rare goal in care: staying healthy and preventing illness in the first place. PPC-PCMH Recognition shows that Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates has tools, systems and resources to provide its patients with the right care at the right time.

In a patient-centered medical home model, each patient has an ongoing relationship with a personal physician who leads a team at a single location that takes responsibility for patient care, providing for the patient’s health care needs and arranging for appropriate care with other clinicians. The medical home is intended to result in more personalized, coordinated, effective and efficient care. A medical home achieves these goals through a high level of accessibility, providing excellent communication among patients, physicians and staff and taking full advantage of the latest information technology to prescribe, communicate, track test results, obtain clinical support information and monitor patient health.

Harvard Vanguard joins other Atrius Health affiliates in achieving Level 3 status making Atrius Health one of the largest practice groups in the country to achieve this NCQA medical home designation across 35of its internal medicine office locations. 

About Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates

http://www.harvardvanguard.org
Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates is a nonprofit multi-specialty medical group providing care to 495,000 adult and pediatric patients at more than 21 offices across eastern Massachusetts. As an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, Harvard Vanguard physicians are on the staff of Boston’s academic medical centers and community hospitals. Harvard Vanguard’s 4,100 employees, including more than 600 physicians and 1,000 healthcare professionals, are committed to making it easier for patients to be and stay healthy. Harvard Vanguard practices are among the highest rated in the state for clinical quality and accept insurance from most major health plans, including Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield of MA, Fallon Community Health Plan, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Neighborhood Health Plan, Tufts Health Plan, and Tufts Health Plan Medicare Preferred. Harvard Vanguard is an affiliate of Atrius Health (http://www.atriushealth.org), an alliance of six non-profit community-based medical groups in Massachusetts.

About NCQA

Celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2010, NCQA is a private, non-profit organization dedicated to improving health care quality. NCQA accredits and certifies a wide range of health care organizations. It also recognizes clinicians and practices in key areas of performance. NCQA's Hea!thcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS®) is the most widely used performance measurement tool in health care. NCQA is committed to providing health care quality information for consumers, purchasers, health care providers and researchers.

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