Patient-centered medical home and quality measurement in small practices

Objectives: To assess performance on quality measures among small primary care practices that recently adopted an electronic health record (EHR), and how performance differs between practices that have achieved patient-centered medical home (PCMH) recognition and those that have not. Study Design: Retrospective cohort study. Methods: Comparison of practice characteristics and performance on quality measures across 150 independent practices from 2009 to 2011 by recognition status for Physician Practice Connections-PCMH. Results: PCMH-recognized practices performed significantly better than nonrecognized practices on 5 out of 7 clinical quality measures at baseline, and the differences were maintained over the 2-year study period. Both groups improved on all clinical quality measures. Though the magnitude of differences was small, PCMHrecognized practices had a higher number of patients diagnosed with hypertension and proportionally more black patients. A significant difference in PCMH-recognized practices is that they received, on average, 4 additional quality improvement visits compared with nonrecognized practices. Conclusions: Among small practices that have adopted EHRs, practices with PCMH recognition consistently outperformed practices without recognition on most clinical quality measures. With adequate assistance, small, resource-strapped practices can continue to have higher performance on clinical quality measures.