• Healthcare Solutions
  • Healthcare Overview
  • Emergency Medicine
  • Hospitalist Medicine
  • Urgent Care
  • Wellness Programs
  • Occupational Medicine
  • Medical Homes
• Careers
  • Careers Overview
  • Employment Opportunities
  • Provider Referral Program
• About Us
  • Exigence Overview
  • CEO Message
  • Mission, Vision, Values
  • History
  • Team
  • Exigence Foundation
  • Branded Clothing and Gifts
  • Contact Us
• News
  • Newsworthy
  • Intelligence
• Home

Patient centered medical homes and electronic health records lower costs

12.14.2011

Physicians who operate as a patient centered medical home and use electronic medical records may be able to reduce their costs, according to results from a new pilot program.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Rhode Island launched an initiative three years ago in which it helped physicians acquire EHR systems and adopt a patient-centric approach to care. The trial recently wrapped up, suggesting strong benefits to the approach of care.

Providers were able to reduce their medical costs by between 17 percent and 33 percent, compared to practices that were not using electronic systems or offering patient-centered services. Furthermore, these practices saw improvements across 10 measures of clinical quality.

"Every provider believes that they deliver excellent care, but it wasn’t until we looked at the EHR data that we realized the reality of our profession wasn’t meeting the expectation," said Dr. Pablo Rodriguez, board chairman of the Health Care Alliance and CEO of Women's Care, two practices that participated in the trial.

He said that the quality of care his practices was able to offer patients significantly improved after adopting the patient centered medical home approach and EHRs.

Categories: Patient-Centered Medical Homes 

Related Articles