Bowdoin Street Health Center Recognized as Patient Centered Medical Home
One of few in Massachusetts to receive designation
Date: 12/29/2011
BIDMC Contact: Kelly Lawman
Phone: 617-667-7305
Email: klawman@bidmc.harvard.edu
Bowdoin Street Health Center, an ambulatory site of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, has been designated a Program Level III Patient Centered Medical Home by the National Committee for Quality Assurance. This certification lets patients know that they will be cared for as part of a medical team including their primary care physician, nurses, medical assistants, community resource specialists and, if needed, interpreters.
“Medical homes are primary care physician practices where a patient receives continuous care based on a medical team approach,” says Fran Azzara, RN, Bowdoin Street. “If a visit to a specialist is needed, the primary care physician will remain in the loop, tracking all referrals and tests done.”
Bowdoin Street is the first primary care practice in the BIDMC system and one of only a few health centers in Massachusetts to receive this recognition. Azzara says the goal of a medical home is for each patient to know their primary care physician and members of this physician’s medical team and vice versa. These medical teams will also follow up with patients who miss appointments to ensure no patient falls through the cracks.
“This is the highest recognition possible and the result of a three year transformation of our practice under the leadership of Harvey Bidwell, MD; Fran Azzara, RN; and Kathleen Barry, ANP,” says Adela Margules, Executive Director, Bowdoin Street. “We are now a team-based, patient-centered, integrated and coordinated delivery system of the highest quality care for our adult and pediatric populations.”
In order to receive the designation, Margules says Bowdoin Street successfully met nine rigorous standards of care that demonstrated improved access and communication processes; patient tracking and registry functions; care management; patient self-management support; electronic prescribing; test tracking; referral tracking; performance reporting; and improvement and advanced electronic communication. The certification lasts from Dec. 11, 2011 through Dec. 14, 2014.
The National Committee for Quality Assurance is a private, not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving health care quality. Since its founding in 1990, NCQA has been a central figure in driving improvement throughout the health care system, helping to elevate the issue of health care quality to the top of the national agenda.
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is a patient care, teaching and research affiliate of Harvard Medical School, and currently ranks third in National Institutes of Health funding among independent hospitals nationwide. BIDMC is clinically affiliated with the Joslin Diabetes Center and is a research partner of Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center. BIDMC is the official hospital of the Boston Red Sox. For more information, visit www.bidmc.org.
Bowdoin Street Health Center has offered health services in Dorchester’s Bowdoin/Geveva neighborhood for almost 40 years, providing care of the highest quality for infants, children, teens, adults and seniors. Our multicultural, multilingual staff of physicians, nurse practitioners and specialists – many of whom have been with us for years – share a deep commitment to caring, community and social justice. As part of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a Harvard teaching hospital, we also offer our patients access to a world-class hospital, specialized care and the most advanced medical treatment anywhere.
