Tenets of the New Model of Family Medicine

Personal Medical Home

The practice serves as a personal medical home for each patient, ensuring access to comprehensive, integrated care through an ongoing relationship.

Patient-Centered Care

Patients are active participants in their health and health care.  The practice has a patient-centered, relationship-oriented culture that emphasizes the importance of meeting patients’ needs, reaffirming that the fundamental basis for health care is “people taking care of people.”

Team Approach

An understanding that health care is not delivered by an individual, but rather by a system, which implies a multidisciplinary team approach for delivering and continually improving care for an identified population.

Elimination of Barriers to Access

Elimination, to the extent possible, of barriers to access by patients through implementation of open scheduling, expanded office hours, and additional, convenient options for communication between patients and practice staff.

Enhanced Practice Finance

Improved practice margins are achieved through enhanced operating efficiencies and new revenue streams.

Care Provided with a Community Context

A culturally sensitive, community-oriented, population-perspective focus.

Advanced Information Systems

The ability to use an information system to deliver and improve care, to provide effective practice administration, to communicate with patients, to network with other practices, and to monitor the health of the community.  A standardized electronic health record (EHR), adapted to the specific needs of family physicians, constitutes the central nervous system of the practice.

Whole-Person Orientation

A visible commitment to integrated, whole-person care through such mechanisms as developing cooperative alliances with services or organizations that extend beyond the practice setting, but which are essential for meeting the complete range of needs for a given patient population.  The practice has the ability to help guide a patient through the health care system by integrating care - not simply coordinating it.

Emphasis on Quality and Safety

Systems are in place for the ongoing assessment of performance and outcomes and for implementation of appropriate changes to enhance quality and safety.

Commitment to Provide Basket of Services
A commitment to provide patients with family medicine’s full basket of services - either directly or indirectly through established relationships with other clinicians.

Redesigned Offices

Offices should be redesigned to meet changing patient needs and expectations, to accommodate innovative work processes, and to ensure convenience, comfort, and efficiency for patients and clinicians.

New Model Concepts excerpted with permission from Table 4, "Characteristics of the New Model of Family Medicine," March/April 2004 Annals of Family Medicine (Vol 2, Supplement 1).

Additional Resources

Annals of Family Medicine

Future of Family Medicine Task Force #6 report

AAFP’s Center for Health Information Technology