Patient-Centered Medical Home Recognition and Diabetes Control Among Health Centers: Exploring the Role of Enabling Services

The patient-centered medical home (PCMH) model has been considered a promising approach to improve chronic care delivery, particularly among patients with diabetes. There is theoretical support to suggest that certain nonmedical services, such as enabling services (eg, case management, social work, transportation), embedded within PCMH could be contributing to successful model implementation. It remains unclear whether PCMH recognition or enabling services are related to diabetes control. Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) are an important setting in which to study this relationship given the considerable effort required to implement the PCMH model and the ubiquity of enabling services in these safety net settings. This cross-sectional, population-based study used 2012 data from the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Uniform Data System and PCMH Recognition Initiative Dataset to determine whether PCMH recognition status was associated with diabetes control rates among FQHCs, while controlling for covariates including enabling services. The study linear regression model estimated that PCMH recognition was associated with a 1.5% increase in the proportion of patients with controlled diabetes (B = 0.015; 95% CI 0.002, 0.027). Clinic region, patient age, and race/ethnicity groups also were related to diabetes control; however, enabling services were not. These findings suggest there is a positive association between PCMH recognition and diabetes control rates among FQHCs. Future research, using data that accurately reflect the provision and utilization of PCMH primary care functions and related enabling services, is needed to fully understand the relationship between the PCMH model and population health measures such as diabetes control.