Self Regional Healthcare’s Montgomery Center for Family Medicine Earns National Recognition for Patient-Centered Care
(Greenwood, S.C., July 17, 2015) – Self Regional Healthcare’s Montgomery Center for Family Medicine was recently recognized for having the highest level of patient-centered care. The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) gave the practice Level Three Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) certification – its highest level of achievement.
PCMH recognition affirms that a primary care practice provides an exceptionally high level of patient-focused care. This model employs a team-based and comprehensive method of healthcare that can lead to higher quality, lower costs and healthier patients and communities.
“By following the NCQA standards our practice delivers a higher level of quality care that should bring better health outcomes to the communities we serve,” said Lisa Bledsoe, director of operations at Self Regional Healthcare. “The process to become certified is very detailed and has given the practice a new outlook in patient care.”
Achieving level three status means that the Montgomery Center met certain standards of patient care including offering same-day appointments and off-hour alternatives to care; increased and proactive patient communication; electronic medical records that are easily accessible by the medical team, patient and family members; and motivating patients to do their part to stay as healthy as possible.
“Becoming more adept at improving not just an individual person’s health, but also a community’s health, is at the core of becoming a PCMH,” said Dr. Aaron Zeller, a family medicine physician at Self Regional Healthcare’s Montgomery Center for Family Medicine. “A PCMH goes deeper than the traditional approach of office visits that reactively address acute needs and then occasionally address health maintenance, prevention and chronic conditions, if there’s time. Instead, a PCMH is a team of providers, nurses and office staff that proactively seeks out at-risk individuals within a community and attempts to help them improve their health by providing education, connecting them with community resources and routinely addressing prevention and chronic disease management.”
“A PCMH actively works to improve the overall health of a community,” said Zeller. “Using electronic medical records a PCMH can identify individuals within a community that have specific healthcare needs and proactively address them. For example, individuals with diabetes who are due for blood work can be reminded to schedule an appointment, or individuals who need a colonoscopy to screen for colon cancer can be reminded to have it done. At the Montgomery Center, our desire is to provide the best possible care for our patients and our community, and becoming a PCMH is one way we are striving to do just that.”
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About Self Regional Healthcare:
Self Regional Healthcare is a not-for-profit, regional referral hospital that provides care to residents of Greenwood, Abbeville, Laurens, Saluda, McCormick, Edgefield and Newberry counties. Services include prevention and wellness, acute care and tertiary care services including cancer care, neurosurgery, heart and vascular surgery, NICU, orthopedics and genetics. Self Medical Group is its employed physician affiliate network of 25 practices and more than 75 physicians.
