What is a Medical Home?

• AAP National Center of Medical Home Initiatives
  A medical home is not a building, house, or hospital, but rather an approach to providing comprehensive primary care. A medical home is defined as primary care that is accessible, continuous, comprehensive, family centered, coordinated, compassionate, and culturally effective. This comprehensive AAP web site will provide a wealth of information and resources.
  
  
• The Medical Home: AAP Policy Statement
  This policy statement, revised in 2002, contains an expanded and comprehensive interpretation and definition of the medical home.
  

Promoting the Medical Home Within Child Care Programs

• Immunization tracking and child care health record quality improvement tool: WellCare Tracker
  WellCareTracker™ is a web-based tool that assesses the completeness and timeliness of routine preventive health services received by children. Enter the child's health information, and WellCareTracker™ determines which immunizations and/or services are up-to-date, currently due, or overdue based on the American Academy of Pediatrics' recommendations.
  
  
• Promoting the Medical Home Within Child Care Programs- Applicable Standards from Caring for Our Children
  Compiled from the comprehensive Caring for Our Children, 2nd Edition, this pamphlet presents information about sources of health care, use of child care health consultants, information sharing, health records, and recommendations for preventive pediatric health care.
  
  
• Sample Letters to Help You Communicate With Parents and Doctors
  These sample letters, available on the Pennsylvania Early Childhood Education Linkage System (ECELS) web site, will help facilitate communication with parents and doctors about child health records.
  
  
  • Letter to Doctors Requesting Health Record Information
  • Letter to Parents about Providing Up-To-Date Health Record Info
  • Letter to Parents Describing Preventive Health Services
    

Information You Can Share with Parents

• Medical Home Tools for Families
  This page will help you connect families to medical homes.
  
  
• Navigating the Health Care System
  These Web pages, part of the "Health Topics" section of the AAP web site, will help parents find high quality health care for their children. Look here for information for parents on how to understand and effectively access the health care system.