(NCQA: Washington, D.C.) -- The National Committee for Quality Assurance recently released its 2007 annual report, “Coming Home to Better Care.”  The report looks at the promise of the patient-centered medical home, a promising approach that seeks to strengthen the patient-physician relationship by replacing episodic care with coordinated care and a long-term healing relationship.

“The patient-centered medical home isn’t just an appealing idea. It is increasingly recognized as an antidote to today’s fragmented system, in which episodic care is delivered by a range of providers who are not as well-connected to one another as they should be,” says NCQA President Margaret E. O’Kane. “This model makes intuitive sense.”

Featured in this year’s report are interviews with health care thought leaders who have led the call for widespread implementation of the medical home model, including

Paul Grundy, M.D., MPH, FACOEM, FACPM, director of healthcare, technology, and strategic initiatives for IBM global well-being services and health benefits and chairman of the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative

Karen Davis, president of The Commonwealth Fund

John Tooker, M.D., MBA, FACP, executive vice president and CEO of the American College of Physicians

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