Penn. doc creates medical home as part of health care transformation

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports on Joseph Mambu, a Pennsylvania doctor who created a medical home in 2001. At the beginning "Mambu didn't know where he was headed. Now he's at the vanguard of a movement sweeping America - the patient-centered medical home - in which physicians have more time for complex cases and are much more proactive in promoting the health of all patients, who have same-day access to their medical team." It's a concept promoted by the new health law and one many experts call "the future of primary care. … For four years, Mambu worked 80-hour weeks to build his new practice, Family Medicine, Geriatrics & Wellness, in Lower Gwynedd. He teamed with Lisa Albert, a nurse practitioner, and with his wife. ...  In 2005, Mambu was accepted into the TransforMED Demonstration Project run by the American Academy of Family Physicians. Fewer than 5 percent of medical school graduates were choosing primary care. A new model needed to be created. This project was going to be the laboratory. Just 36 practices in America were accepted. Mambu was the only Pennsylvanian" (Vitez, 5/25).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.