Six HCMC clinics certified as Health Care Homes
Six of Hennepin County Medical Center’s primary care clinics are now certified as health care homes. A Health Care Home or a medical home is a patient and family centered way of providing coordinated primary care for all patients, especially those with chronic and complex conditions. Locally, the concept of Health Care Homes was introduced as part of Minnesota’s health reform legislation in 2008, and they are also part of a national initiative to ultimately improve the health of the population, the patient/consumer experience, and the affordability of health care.
HCMC’s certified Health Care Home clinics include East Lake Street Clinic, the downtown Pediatric Clinic, Richfield Clinic, Positive Care Clinic, Aqui Para Ti, and the Coordinated Care Clinic. These clinics met the series of requirements that included continuous access, care coordination, care planning, registry and quality improvement.
Care coordinators are essential to Health Care Homes. At HCMC, this role is performed by both community health workers and registered nurses, depending upon the complexity of care coordination needs. These care coordinators work closely with patients and families to manage all aspects of care, and are key partners on the patient’s health team.
Art Gonzalez, CEO
and care coordinator. “While HCMC has always valued and encouraged patient participation, this program certification demonstrates our commitment to working side by side with our patients to address all of their health care needs and goals,” explains HCMC CEO Art Gonzalez. “We strive for patient-centered care for all of our patients, and this approach helped us pave our way to providing care in our Health Care Home clinics.”
HCMC is committed to certifying all of its primary care clinics as health care homes.
Hennepin County Medical Center is a nationally recognized Level 1 Adult Trauma Center and Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Center with the largest emergency department in Minnesota. The comprehensive academic medical center and public teaching hospital includes a 477-bed acute care hospital and primary care and specialty clinics located in downtown Minneapolis, primary care clinics in Brooklyn Center, Brooklyn Park, Richfield and in Minneapolis in the Whittier Neighborhood and on East Lake Street, retail clinics in Bloomington and Eden Prairie an employee clinic in the Hennepin County Government Center, and a Neurology & Specialty Clinic in Chaska. For the fifteenth year in a row, Hennepin County Medical Center is listed in the U.S. News & World Report rankings of the top U.S. Hospitals in its annual “America’s Best Hospitals” report.
