CAFP Leads PCMH Discussions with Legislators,Business and Payors

IBM’s Global Director for Health Care Transformation, Paul Grundy, MD,MPH, was a big hit at an informational briefing on the Patient CenteredMedical Home (PCMH) at the Capitol in Early June. More than 40 leg-islative staff and lobbyists showed up for the session. Co-sponsored byCAFP and the Senate and Assembly Health Committees, the briefingwas designed to improve understanding about PCMH and potentialimprovements in health outcomes and quality and reduced cost themodel may offer. With Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) loomingas the next new thing,

Dr. Grundy explained that PCMH is the neighborhood and ACOs are the community. He got everyone’s attention whenhe said that continuing to provide health care in the same way we have is immoral, and business will be demanding thebetter value and outcomes that PCMH offers. He also noted that California will suffer a “brain drain” of graduating resi-dents to other states where the PCMH model is more prevalent if they can't find practices in California offering PCMHfeatures, and health plans will find themselves at a competitive disadvantage if they can't offer PCMH practices to pur-chasers of health care.

CAFP also arranged meetings for Dr. Grundy at UCSF, UC Davis and with the Fresno Unified School District (FUSD), whichis interested in the PCMH model.

Week Two of the Paul Grundy Express

Paul Grundy, MD, MPH, IBM’s Global Director of Health CareTransformation, spent the week of July 12 iin northern Californiato attend a series of meetings regarding the Patient CenteredMedical Home. At the start of the week, Dr. Grundy was at UC SanFrancisco for a PCMH roundtable discussion hosted by CAFPMember Kevin Grumbach, MD. The roundtable was held to dis-cuss related health care workforce policy issues.

On July 13, Dr. Grundy, along with Susan Hogeland, CAE, CAFPExecutive Vice President, and Leah Newkirk, Director of HealthPolicy were in Sacramento to meet with representatives of SutterHealth. CAFP past president Carla Kakutani, MD was instrumentalin putting this meeting together.

Dr. Grundy returned to San Francisco for a meeting with Brown and Toland Medical Group, then with MeredithMatthews, MD, Medical Director of Blue Shield of California. Dr. Grundy also celebrated his birthday on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, Dr. Grundy traveled to Fresno for an afternoon meeting entitled: “Health Care Reform Impact to ValueBased Plan Design and Primary Care: The Potential for Improving Health and Reducing Costs in Fresno” and a discus-sion about the potential for a PCMH demonstration project in the city and county of Fresno. CAFP Board memberAdrianna Padilla (Shown on the right) was instrumental in arranging this community discussion.

Dr. Grundy capped off the week with similar meetings in Southern California.