This article analyzes potential barriers in the U.S. to the patient-centered medical home model, which is considered policy shorthand for the reinvention of primary care. Barriers include developing new payment models, personnel and infrastructure funding, and methods to facilitate transforming...

Drawing on a white paper and brief for the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality, this article summarizes strategies to help smaller primary care practices transform into medical homes that effectively serve patients with complex needs, particularly the frail elderly and working-age adults...

Interest in evaluating which health care interventions work best under what circumstances has surged in recent years as health care spending has risen. This brief, the first from Mathematica’s Center on Health Care Effectiveness, looks at the new comparative effectiveness research (CER)...

This article discusses the implications of diagnostic errors for comparative effectiveness research (CER). It notes the potential role of CER studies for improving diagnosis and treatment decisions and the value of expanding the CER agenda to address misdiagnosis.

This paper describes payment options to support the patient-centered medical home and identifies conceptual strengths and weaknesses.

paper addresses why the three dominant alternatives to compensating physicians (fee-for-service, capitation, and salary) fall short of what is needed to support enhanced primary care in the patient-centered medical home and the relevance of payment reforms, such as pay-for-performance and...

This commentary discusses the lessons and opportunities presented through the Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education program and suggests that advocates of this should be cautious in applying lessons learned to broader graduate medical education policy reform.

This article examines the changing nature of first-contact care in the United States and its shift from primary care practitioners to emergency physicians, specialists, and outpatient departments. This pattern is far different from urgent access to primary care in other industrialized countries....

This article explains the key role the federal government plays in defining the context and process of comparative effectiveness research as well as its funding. It also explores the mission, priorities, and research agenda of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute.

This paper addresses why the three dominant alternatives to compensating physicians (fee-for-service, capitation, and salary) fall short of what is needed to support enhanced primary care in the patient-centered medical home and the relevance of payment reforms, such as pay-for-performance and...