In 2012, the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC) certified the SHCS medical primary care clinic as a Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH). Our program was just the second college student health center in the country to become certified as a PCMH and since that time, many college health centers have pursued this approach to healthcare delivery.
To achieve PCMH certification, our medical clinic developed a care model uniquely designed to increase patient access to comprehensive health care and wellness resources. The PCMH (or simply, “Medical Home”) service delivery model offers a superior approach to optimizing student health and wellness care.
The SHCS "Medical Home"
The SHCS Medical Home facilitates health care partnerships between individual patients and their personal primary care provider. To achieve this, all students are assigned to a designated primary care provider and health care team throughout their UC Davis enrollment. In addition to the consistency of the primary care provider assignment, the Medical Home model focuses on five key aspects of care:
- The patient/provider relationship
- Continuity of care
- Comprehensiveness of care
- Quality of care
- Accessibility
The Patient/Provider Relationship
Partnership ensures that health care decisions respect patients’ wants and preferences while addressing their assessment and treatment needs. Partnership enables patients to receive the education and support to make personalized choices and participate in their own care. The partnership strives to foster better communication, understanding and collaboration between patient and provider, improving adherence to a mutually agreed upon healthcare plan.
Continuity of Care
Continuity is prioritized to ensure more than 50% of primary care visits are with the same physician or physician team. Continuity facilitates consistency in care management and assures that your treatment team documents and reviews all important and relevant information in your clinical record. Documentation of consultations, referrals, procedures, follow-ups, missed appointments and after-hours encounters is consistently available to your treatment team.
Comprehensiveness of Care
Comprehensive care enables your primary care provider to optimally address all aspects of your healthcare needs. Prevention resources, wellness care, acute illness and injury treatment, and chronic care management are all available to you from your primary care team. The team can also provide referrals to community services as appropriate, provide follow up care, and collaborate with the community specialists or allied health professionals to ensure that you receive the best care.
Quality of Care
SHCS Medical Home providers incorporate evidence-based guidelines and performance measures to provide the best quality clinical services. Providers assess the value of our services in meeting your unique needs to help SHCS continuously improve our care. Guidelines and measures are regularly monitored and evaluated to ensure that they are current, effective and appropriate. Reviews include assessment of timely diagnosis, testing guidelines, referral patterns, and medication management.
Accessibility
“Open Access” appointment scheduling improves timely access to care, with appointments for illness treatment and disease management usually available within the same or next business day. Providing ready access to clinic services helps to ensure that patients can promptly address illness or injury and seek early intervention treatment services. SHCS also provides after-hour advice nurse and counseling services consultation 24/7 for all UC Davis students wishing to discuss medical and mental health concerns and determine the need for care when our facilities are closed.
For routine wellness and chronic conditions that do not require immediate assistance, SHCS recommends that you schedule with your primary care provider, or a member of your primary care team, to help optimize your care. When you go online or call to schedule, you will be offered appointments with your primary care provider (or another provider on your primary care team) first, to help you maintain connection with your care team who can partner with you to determine the next best steps for your medical care.
Most services from our allied health and on-site consultant specialists require a referral from an SHCS provider, and our team can help get those appointments scheduled once that referral is placed.
Our knowledgeable staff understand that academic demands, financial constraints, and the complex healthcare environment can make getting care while in college a challenge. If you have questions on the Patient-Centered Medical Home model used at SHCS to help optimize your care, or any questions with which we can be of assistance, please let us know (https://shcs.ucdavis.edu/about/contact-us).