Wright State Physicians Family Medicine earns national recognition for patient-centered care

The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) announced that Wright State Physicians Family Medicine has received NCQA Patient-Centered Medical Home Recognition for using evidence-based, patient-centered processes that focus on highly coordinated care and long‐term, participative relationships.

The NCQA Patient-Centered Medical Home standards emphasize enhanced care through patient-clinician partnership. The medical home is a model of primary care that combines teamwork and information technology to improve care, improve patients’ experience of care and reduce costs.

Medical homes foster ongoing partnerships between patients and their personal physicians, instead of approaching care as the sum of episodic office visits. Each patient’s care is overseen by physician-led care teams that coordinate treatment across the health care system.

“NCQA Patient-Centered Medical Home Recognition raises the bar in defining high-quality care by emphasizing access, health information technology and coordinated care focused on patients,” said NCQA President Margaret E. O’Kane. “Recognition shows that Wright State Physicians Family Medicine has the tools, systems and resources to provide its patients with the right care at the right time.”

To earn recognition, which is valid for three years, Wright State Physicians Family Medicine demonstrated the ability to meet the program’s key elements, embodying characteristics of the medical home.

NCQA standards aligned with the joint principles of the Patient-Centered Medical Home established with the American College of Physicians, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Osteopathic Association.

More than two years ago, Peggy Whisman, practice manager, and Donald Clark, M.D., medical director of Wright State Physicians Family Medicine, began working on this process.

Wright State Physicians Family Medicine was one of 47 model practices associated with Ohio House Bill 198, a bill designed to help transform practices outside of the three large metropolitan areas in Ohio into patient-centered medical homes.

“As a medical team, we are committed to quality patient care,” Clark said. “Patient experience, quality of care, cost of care and improving the environment for the medical team come from the medical team’s desire to have ongoing, communicative relationships with the patients we serve.”

The following Wright State Physicians Family Medicine clinicians are linked to this recognition: physicians Frederic Leeds, Katharine Conway, Donald Clark, Therese Zink, John Donnelly, Cynthia Olsen and Robert Brandt, and nurse practitioners Scott Newman and Katie McMenamin.

Wright State Physicians Inc. is composed of more than 160 physicians affiliated with the Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine. The group provides primary and specialty care in a wide range of specialized diagnostic and treatment services throughout the Dayton region.