Bowdoin Street Health Center receives Recognition as a Patient Centered Medical Home
On December 12, 2011, Bowdoin Street Health Center received notification of recognition from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) as a Level III, Patient Centered Medical Home for the period of December 11, 2011 through December 14, 2014. This is the highest recognition possible and the result of a three year transformation of our practice under the leadership of Dr. Harvey Bidwell, Francine Azzara, RN, and Kathleen Barry, ANP to a team based, patient centered, integrated and coordinated delivery system of the highest quality our entire patient population. We have successfully met nine rigorous standards of care that demonstrate improved access and communication processes, patient tracking, registry functions, care management, patient self-management support, electronic prescribing, test tracking, referral tracking, performance reporting/improvement and advanced electronic communication.
As a result of this transformation, patients can expect to receive the highest quality care for themselves and their families.
Some of the benefits include:
-Being a part of a medical home team that includes your/your child's primary care doctor or nurse practitioner, nurses, medical assistants, interpreters, other specialists as needed and administrative support staff
-Receiving recommended care for your diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma or other chronic conditions based on agreed upon standards of care
-Scheduling most of your/your child's routine health visits with a primary care doctor or nurse practitioner who knows you best and who can coordinate any specialty care you may require
-Being an active partner in your/your child's care: setting your own goals to maintain or improve your health and receiving the information and support you need to achieve them from your medical home team
-Receiving information about follow up visits needed, preventive services and recommended cancer screening from your medical home team
-Having a nurse assigned to your team who will contact you by phone after a hospital admission or an emergency room visit for an acute or chronic disease condition to ensure that all of your questions are answered and a follow up plan with your primary care provider is set
-Increasing your access to your health care team through PatientSite.org: a secure email system which allows you to communicate with your medical home team for appointments, prescription refills, lab results or questions.
We are also very interested in hearing what our patients have to say and encourage participation in our patient satisfaction surveys.
If you have further questions about what this means please feel free to ask your medical home team during your next visit or contact Francine Azzara, Operations Manager at 617-754-0100.