ORLANDO, Fla. - August 14, 2012 — PatientPoint®, the leader and innovator in care coordination solutions that drive engagement with patients and providers, today announced that Fayetteville Medical Associates, a Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee patient-centered medical home (PCMH) demonstration site, will be deploying the PatientPoint care coordination platform to streamline care management across its patient population to improve health outcomes while controlling operational costs.
Fayetteville Medical Associates (FMA), a primary care group practice, has been serving the Fayetteville, TN area since 1909. Core to its founding principles is the mission to provide state-of-the-art healthcare to the residents of Lincoln County and surrounding areas. As such, Fayetteville Medical Associates has been an early adopter of health information technologies such as the electronic medical record, in addition to leading the charge for value-based care models such as PCMH.
"With all of these changes comes great potential for our patients. However, it also brings increased responsibility for our staff," said Fred Ralston, Jr., M.D., MACP, an internist at FMA. Dr. Ralston, a past president for the American College of Physicians, knows how critical a primary care transformation is to the future of healthcare in the United States, but also how daunting the requirements of newer care models, such as the PCMH, can be to a physician practice.
"Physicians need cost-effective ways to automate clinical processes, and communicate with their patients more informatively and readily about appointments, treatments and general health information. PatientPoint is an excellent tool to help us facilitate many aspects of the detail work of primary care allowing our physicians to focus on issues where a one-on-one discussion is most valuable," continued Dr. Ralston.
As a Level I NCQA-recognized PCMH practice, FMA is well on its way to providing more comprehensive care to its patients by offering: enhanced access to physicians, an interactive patient portal, disease prevention programs and self-management tools, and health coaching and wellness programs. With the addition of PatientPoint, the practice will also start to incorporate additional health programs, such as Medicare Wellness Visits and Preventative Screenings Services.
The PatientPoint care coordination platform will enable FMA to automate gaps in care reconciliation from the multiple health plans they work with, outreach to patients for outstanding gaps or overdue service, activate patients upon electronic check-in, align physicians and care teams with the most current clinical information, and follow up post-care to monitor adherence to the plan of care.
Dr. Ralston added, "Most practices our size can't afford large healthcare IT undertakings, nor can they sustain the cost to manually coordinate care. The PatientPoint model allows us to implement a technology that doesn't add a cost burden to our practice. In the end, it has the potential to help us pay for the high level of personal service and care to the patients we serve."
"Our partnership with Dr. Ralston and Fayetteville shows their commitment to developing and deploying innovative solutions that streamline, strengthen and automate care coordination processes," said Raj Toleti, CEO of PatientPoint. "By focusing on key interactions between the patient and provider, PatientPoint will be able to assist Fayetteville Medical Associates in achieving and maintaining the highest levels of PCMH certification."
About Fayetteville Medical Associates
Fayetteville Medical Associates (FMA), founded in 1909, is a Primary Care Group Practice that includes internists, family physicians, pediatricians and a nurse practitioner who provide care and service to patients in Fayetteville, TN, serving a rural county of 33,000 near Huntsville, AL. Physicians from FMA have provided medical leadership at the state and national level, and are involved in a number of initiatives to help reshape the delivery of primary care, including the adoption of health IT and transformation to new care advocacy models such as Patient Centered Medical Home.