As the patient-centered medical home model emerges as a key vehicle to improve the quality of health care and to control costs, the experience of Seattle-based Group Health Cooperative with its medical home pilot takes on added importance. This paper examines the effects of the medical home prototype on patients' experiences, quality, burnout of clinicians, and total costs at twenty-one to twenty-four months after implementation. The results show improvements in patients' experiences, quality, and clinician burnout through two years. Compared to other Group Health clinics, patients in the medical home experienced 29 percent fewer emergency visits and 6 percent fewer hospitalizations. We estimate total savings of $10.3 per patient per month twenty-one months into the pilot. We offer an operational blueprint and policy recommendations for adoption in other health care settings.

These findings demonstrate the feasibility and potential utility of identifying and reporting contextual factors. Involving diverse stakeholders in assessing context at multiple stages of the research process, examining their association with outcomes, and consistently reporting critical contextual factors are important challenges for a field interested in improving the internal and external validity and impact of health care research.

Community health workers have potential to enhance primary care access and quality, but remain underutilized. To provide guidance on their integration, we characterized roles and functions of community health workers in primary care through a literature review and synthesis. Analysis of 30 studies identified 12 functions (ie, care coordination, health coaching, social support, health assessment, resource linking, case management, medication management, remote care, follow-up, administration, health education, and literacy support) and 3 prominent roles representing clusters of functions: clinical services, community resource connections, and health education and coaching. We discuss implications for community health worker training and clinical support in primary care.

National Clinical Trial Number NCT02286141.

BackgroundTeam-based care is now recognized as an essential feature of high quality primary care, but there is limited empiric evidence to guide practice transformation. The purpose of this paper is to describe advances in the configuration and deployment of practice teams based on in-depth study of 30 primary care practices viewed as innovators in team-based care.MethodsAs part of LEAP, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, primary care experts nominated 227 innovative primary care practices. We selected 30 practices for intensive study through review of practice descriptive and performance data. Each practice hosted a 3-day site visit between August, 2012 and September, 2013, where specific advances in team configuration and roles were noted. Advances were identified by site visitors and confirmed at a meeting involving representatives from each of the 30 practices.ResultsLEAP practices have expanded the roles of existing staff and added new personnel to provide the person power and skills needed to perform the tasks and functions expected of a patient-centered medical home (PCMH). LEAP practice teams generally include a rich array of staff, especially registered nurses (RNs), behavioral health specialists, and lay health workers. Most LEAP practices organize their staff into core teams, which are built around partnerships between providers and specific Medical Assistants (MAs), and often include registered nurses (RNs) and others such as health coaches or receptionists. MAs, RNs, and other staff are heavily involved in the planning and delivery of preventive and chronic illness care. The care of more complex patients is supported by behavioral health specialists, RN care managers, and pharmacists. Standing orders and protocols enable staff to act independently.ConclusionsThe 30 LEAP practices engage health professional and lay staff in patient care to the maximum extent, which enables the practices to meet the expectations of a PCMH and helps free up providers to focus on tasks that only they can perform.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12875-017-0590-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

OBJECTIVE:To obtain detailed narrative accounts of patients' motivations for pursuing physician-assisted suicide (PAS). DESIGN: Longitudinal case studies.PARTICIPANTS: Sixty individuals discussed 35 cases. Participants were recruited through advocacy organizations that counsel individuals interested in PAS, as well as hospices and grief counselors.SETTING: Participants' homes. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS:We conducted a content analysis of 159 semistructured interviews with patients and their family members, and family members of deceased patients, to characterize the issues associated with pursuit of PAS. Most patients deliberated about PAS over considerable lengths of time with repeated assessments of the benefits and burdens of their current experience. Most patients were motivated to engage in PAS due to illness-related experiences (e.g., fatigue, functional losses), a loss of their sense of self, and fears about the future. None of the patients were acutely depressed when planning PAS. CONCLUSIONS:Patients in this study engaged in PAS after a deliberative and thoughtful process. These motivating issues point to the importance of a broad approach in responding to a patient's request for PAS. The factors that motivate PAS can serve as an outline of issues to explore with patients about the far-reaching effects of illness, including the quality of the dying experience. The factors also identify challenges for quality palliative care: assessing patients holistically, conducting repeated assessments of patients' concerns over time, and tailoring care accordingly.

To meet different families' needs, public health and health care agencies offering youth health promotion programs should consider providing program options that vary intensity level and weight loss emphasis.

These patient and family accounts reveal missed opportunities for clinicians to engage in therapeutic relationships, including discussions about PAS, dying, and end-of-life care. Clinicians responding to patients requesting PAS need communication skills enabling them to discuss PAS and dying openly, as well as expertise in setting reasonable expectations, individualizing pain control, and providing accurate information about the lethal potential of medications.