The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or the PPACA, is currently able to provide two organizational structures which will promote health, and disease prevention, decrease the need for fee-for-service systems, offer cost-effective care, and incorporate the implementation of an electronic healthcare database. These models are the “Patient-Centered Medical Home” (PCMH) and the “Accountable Care Organization” (ACO) (Haas, 2021). The PPACA approves the establishment of community-centered interdisciplinary teams of professionals to sustain primary care services within specific fields of medical practice. These interdisciplinary care delivery teams, or simply “Health Teams”, can include hospital staff such as nutritionists, pharmacists, dietitians, nurse practitioners, medical specialists, and primary care physicians. These teams have the responsibility to assist the patient-oriented healthcare homes, which are also models of their own, and practice coordinated, integrated, individual-oriented care, and use of appropriate and approved medicine.
Within the PCMH model, physicians should be able to form strong, reciprocal, and functional relationships between professionals. Additionally, the communication and cooperation between specialty physicians and the local hospitals should be upheld. The employment of integrated electronic health records is also vital for the cost-effective factors of care in the PCMH model. It is vital that all the experts are able to coordinate appropriate medical plans for patients and assist their colleagues within their working sphere.
The ACOs are the administrative structures that provide hospitals, physicians, and other participants with superior cost-effective care and a system to monitor accountability (“How does the Affordable Care Act define ACOs”, 2021). The primary effort of ACOs includes coordination and cooperation of the providers in order to increase the quality of service for Medicare beneficiaries while decreasing the surplus costs of the care. The quality control will be observed through measurements in areas such as clinical proceedings, outcomes of patient care, the experience of a patient, and the amount and rate of service utilization. It is expected that the PCMH and the ACOs will be codependent when implemented in medical care.
References
Haas, S. A. (2017). Health reform act: New models of care and delivery systems. American Academy of Ambulatory Care Nursing.
How does the Affordable Care Act define ACOs? (2021). Physicians for a National Health Program.