Harbor Care Health and Wellness Center Achieves Patient Centered Medical Home Designation

Jonathon Brown, Director of our Federally Qualified Health Center in Nashua, Harbor Care Health and Wellness Center, explains what a “Patient Centered Medical Home” designation means and why it is so important to the patients Harbor Care serves:

Many consider our country’s health care system to be broken. At the very least the health care system is complex to navigate and expensive to use.

If you are a member of a marginalized community, such as homeless or low income, your challenges navigating health care may be exacerbated.

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) has a model to improve our health care system called the “Triple Aim”.

The Triple Aim has three pillars:

1. Improving the patient experience of care (including quality and satisfaction);
2. Improving the health of populations; and
3. Reducing the per capita cost of health care.

If our health care system collectively collaborates to improve these three pillars we will have a much more effective and equitable health system for everyone.

What does this have to do with Patient Centered Medical Home or PCMH?

- The patient-centered medical home is a model of care that puts patients at the forefront of care.

- PCMHs build better relationships between patients and their clinical care teams.

- Research shows that PCMHs improve quality and the patient experience, and increase staff satisfaction—while reducing health care costs.

- Practices that earn this recognition have made a commitment to continuous quality improvement and a patient-centered approach to care.

I AM PROUD TO SHARE THAT OUR CLINIC EARNED ITS PCMH ACCREDIATION ON JANUARY 13, 2020.

This honor recognizes the high-quality work that focuses on patient access and continuity of care, managing patient populations of special needs, care coordination, and continuous quality improvement.

Back to the Triple Aim – Harbor Care is helping to change our health care system for the better. We are putting marginalized patients at the forefront of this health care change.

The PCMH Accreditation recognizes our efforts and affirms the quality of our systems. This is something we should all be very proud of.

I want to thank and congratulate the PCMH team who persevered through many obstacles though none as daunting as the impact the Covid-19 pandemic, who helped Harbor Care earn this prestigious honor, including Angela Sweeney, Dr. Silvia, Elisabeth Maguire, Erin Sawicki, Janna O’Leary, and Shannon McCarty. There were other contributors along the way who made this possible and we thank them as well. Congratulations to the staff at Harbor Care Health and Wellness Center for their commitment to the many changes and improvement efforts along this year and a half journey. And thank you to our Harbor Care partners and peers for their support.

If you or a loved one is seeking high-quality primary care, mental health and substance use disorder treatment, or dental care, Harbor Care is accepting new patients. We accept most insurances and offer a sliding fee scale for those without insurance or who are unable to pay for care. Schedule an in-person or virtual visit today.