News

Iredell Health System is proud to announce that its Family Care Center of Taylorsville has achieved Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) status from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA).

Patient-Centered Medical Homes

A PCMH focuses on the patient taking an active role in their medical decisions supported by a team of medical professionals. It increases options for getting same-day appointments, and its coordination of care includes innovative technology like electronic medical records and a patient portal.

NCQA’s criteria to achieve PCMH status includes evidence-based standards that focus on team-based care, partnership with patients and families, accuracy and completeness of patient data, medication reconciliation, clinical decision support, structured leadership, same-day access to care, ease of access to clinical advice, care coordination among clinicians, continuity of care, and performance measurement.

Family Care Center of Taylorsville

Family Care Center combines primary and specialty care. Placing patients at the forefront, Family Care Center’s new status reinforces the accomplishment of its fundamental 2018 goal of transforming itself into a comprehensive PCMH.

Family Care Center treats patients of all ages with a broad range of conditions. It provides diagnostic services, updates medical records on each visit, and emphasizes preventive care and education.

Rural Healthcare

Living in a rural area without a hospital and with few specialists, Alexander County residents face unique healthcare obstacles, particularly access to care.

With seven providers administering a multitude of services — such as weekly MRIs, monthly mammography, internal x-ray, internal DEXA scan, and physical therapy — Family Care Center provides a daily average of 150 to 170 Alexander County patients the ability to confidently access healthcare services and lead normal, healthy lives.

Family Care Center provides its patients and local residents with a community board where information is posted on whom to contact if they need food and what specialists, such as dental clinics, are local. It operates for extended hours, collaborates closely and often with emergency medical services, and focuses on patients’ transportation means to reach and use services.

“Family Care Center delivers multi-specialties and multi-faceted healthcare in one footprint. A patient can come to one place and get everything they need for their healthcare,” said Carla Johnson, Director of Operations for Iredell Physician Network.

The practice has been established for more than 30 years and continues to grow, soon providing behavioral health services, which residents currently have to travel outside the county to access.

Quality Measurement

“As quality measurement in healthcare is growing, our official PCMH recognition gives us an industry-leading endorsement of quality measurement,” said Harold Brown, Vice President of the Iredell Physician Network. “As healthcare quality recognition becomes more prominent, Family Care Center’s commitment to achieving and maintaining PCMH status shows our continued dedication to delivering quality care.”

An accompanying core component for Family Care Center is care management.

“Care management is seeing medical care not from inside our walls looking out at our lobby, patients, and schedule. Rather, it is seeing medical care from the patient’s eyes,” Johnson said. “If a patient is sick in the middle of the night, their first thought might be, ‘I probably can’t get into my doctor today. I’ll just go to the emergency room to a provider who doesn’t know anything about me.’ Now, when they wake up and they call us, we get them in, and we take care of them. And if we’re not the ones they need to see, we reach out to a specialist.”

National Committee for Quality Assurance

The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) is a nonprofit organization that promotes healthcare quality measurement through in-depth standards and accreditation. Its PCMH program is the nation’s most widely used PCMH evaluation program.

The NCQA now applies its review to grant accreditation each year, giving Family Care Center the opportunity to continuously showcase its patient-centered approach and constant commitment to quality.

“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 Iredell Health System has the tools, systems, and resources to provide its patients with the right care at the right time.”