The Minnesota approach to Health Care Homes

The Health Care Home is a transformative change in the delivery of primary care. The design principles for Health Care Homes in Minnesota focus broadly on the continuum of “health” and incorporate expectations for engagement of the patient, family and community. Fundamentally, the Health Care Home is a change in the patient-provider relationship augmented by financial structures and measurement of results. Expectations for transformative change must be sufficient to achieve these results. Among these expectations are:

• Patient- and family-centered care are foundational to the Minnesota Health Care Homes program. Patients/families/consumers will be involved in all aspects of program development.
• Quality improvement teams are required at the practice level. Health Care Homes will have an active practice-based quality improvement team that includes patients/families as equal team members.
• Learning collaboratives support and foster practice-level change. Participation is required.
• Financial structures must be aligned to promote this transformation and must include adequate risk adjustment for medical and non-medical complexity.
• Recertification is outcome-based. In the certification and recertification process, a balance will be sought between fidelity to the model (criteria) and flexibility for innovation. A goal of the program is to maximize clinic flexibility to achieve all of the outcomes.

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