The patient-centered medical home and health information technology.

OBJECTIVE: To demonstrate that concepts of patient-centeredness and technology-centeredness must work together within the context of the transformation to the patient-centered medical home (PCMH), a primary care model that emphasizes coordinated, comprehensive, accessible, and cost-effective care.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Information in this article was gathered from a workshop on the Medical Home in Alexandria, VA in June 2010 that brought together civilian and military medical providers, researchers, and other stakeholders in PCMH to discuss their experiences in transitioning from traditional primary care to PCMH in addition to a literature review of articles from medical journals.

RESULTS: Patient-centeredness is often only vaguely defined as being in opposition to provider-centered or technology-centered. Our analysis shows that focusing on either technological improvements or enhancing patient-centered care will not improve the fragmented healthcare system in the United States. We argue that these two concepts are not incompatible as sometimes believed, but rather it is critical that we recognize they must work together in routine practices in order to truly improve the state of healthcare.

CONCLUSION: Health information technology (HIT) supports many of the core principles of PCMH, but there are still several challenges as not all technologies have functionalities yet that facilitate the model. We suggest patient-centeredness be one of the main concepts that drives the redesign and implementation of new health technologies in primary care. It is no longer about just implementing new technologies; these technologies must enhance patient-provider relationships, communication, access, and patients' engagement in their own care.