A. John Blair III, MD, to Present at National Medical Home Summit

Blair will present lessons learned from multi-stakeholder medical home program in New York's Hudson Valley

FISHKILL, N.Y., Sept. 15, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The health care community looks to the medical home as the foundation for new and more accountable systems of health care delivery, and A. John Blair III, MD, CEO of MedAllies and president of Taconic IPA, knows first-hand what it takes to help primary care practices make the transformation to more patient-centered, efficient care delivery.

Blair will be among a select group of thought leaders to present the foundational steps and lessons learned from a program that has seen more than 300 physicians transform to medical homes to date. His presentation, "Hudson Valley Initiative: Lessons from an IPA-led, Multi-stakeholder Medical Home Initiative," will be presented at the Sept. 21-22 Medical Home Summit in San Francisco, Calif.

The drive toward health care transformation in the Hudson Valley is built on a foundation of adoption of electronic health records and their meaningful use to improve health care quality and lower costs. MedAllies and Taconic IPA, together with Taconic Health Information Network and Community, are part of the Hudson Valley Initiative (HVI), an effort to transform the health care system. HVI was founded to seek solutions to today's health care challenges—namely problems with care that is uncoordinated, expensive and inefficient.

"Ensuring that providers have the information they need, when they need it, is foundational to delivering more streamlined, coordinated care," Blair said. "Transformation to the medical home is a focused effort to improve patient safety and the quality of care delivery, using a team-based approach to care that is supported by great communication and health IT. TIPA has been offering support for practice transformation for more than three years, first helping primary care practices achieve Level 3 NCQA medical home recognition and now expanding those efforts through sponsorship of a unique embedded care coordination program."

MedAllies is also no stranger to innovation. Its expertise helped create the virtual integration necessary for health information exchange in a community that lacks a large integrated delivery network. The health information services provider is one of only seven sites nationwide to launch a Direct Project, a national effort to fast track electronic health information exchange that was spearheaded by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. Direct provides a simple, secure, scalable, standards-based way for participants to send authenticated, encrypted health information directly to known, trusted recipients via the Internet—an approach that will work across various EHR vendors. Some Direct pilots are moving data for lab transactions, some for public health reporting. In MedAllies' hands, Direct is a tool to advance primary care models that emphasize care coordination and improved care transitions.

For more information about the National Medical Home Summit at the Grand Hyatt San Francisco, go www.medicalhomesummit.com/overview.html.

About the Hudson Valley Initiative

The Hudson Valley Initiative is an effort among three organizations—Taconic IPA, Taconic Health Information Network and Community and MedAllies—to revolutionize health care delivery through a shared vision to improve the quality, safety and efficiency of health care in the community. These three organizations leverage health information technology, physician practice transformation and value-based purchasing in pursuit of care delivery that is patient-centered, coordinated, accessible, high quality and efficiently delivered through sustainable financial models. To learn more, go to www.hudsonvalleyinitiative.com.

SOURCE Hudson Valley Initiative