Most pediatric practices do not have a comprehensive strategy for coordinating their patients’ care. Important coordination activities such as care planning and referrals to developmental services instead are performed in ad hoc ways. Drawing on a recent Commonwealth Fund report, Making Care Coordination a Critical Component of the Pediatric Health System: A Multidisciplinary Framework, the authors of this Fund-supported article discuss strategies for coordinating care in medical homes. They report that having committed leadership and a process to shift care delivery from “reactive encounters” to “proactive interactions” are key to success. Families and children should be enlisted as partners—for example, through formation of focus groups or advisory councils. Tasks should be distributed across members of the care team to best utilize time and skills, and providers should seek help from professional and community resources. In addition, measures to assess the effects of care coordination—in terms of satisfaction, receipt of preventive services, and health outcomes, as well as health care utilization and costs—are needed. Ultimately, payment policies should support care coordination as a fundamental part of comprehensive care delivered in a medical home.
