Maine Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) Pilot: Implementation Evaluation

The purpose of this Maine Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) Pilot is to improve quality of care, efficiency, and patient/family satisfaction provided by primary care practices. Its premise is that the resources provided to practices through the Pilot (including enhanced payments, training, consultation, and learning collaborative) will help them transform themselves and reach a higher level of functionality as medical homes, which in turn will lead to improvements in quality of care, efficiency, and patient/family satisfaction. The three-year Pilot was convened by MaineCare, the Maine Quality Forum, and Quality Counts. The participating payers are MaineCare (Maine Medicaid), Aetna, Anthem, and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. Three aspects of the Pilot are being evaluated by the Muskie School of Public Service: 1) patient’s experiences; 2) the implementation process and interim results during Year 1; and 3) changes in the quality and efficiency of primary care. This report focuses on findings from the implementation evaluation. The objectives of the implementation evaluation are to
• Profile the characteristics of the Pilot practices
• Describe the practices’ objectives and strategies for implementing the Pilot
• Describe the implementation process during Year 1
• Provide practical guidance to the practices, the Pilot conveners, and MaineCare
• Develop profiles of the Pilot practices for use in the quality and efficiency evaluation
• Make recommendations for use by evaluators of other PCMH pilots