title: Course on care of patients with chronic illness: patient-centered medical home model.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In the United States, the Patient-centered Medical Home (PCMH) is an emerging concept in primary care that is guiding clinical reorganization to meet the needs of patients with chronic illness. We developed a one-semester curriculum to teach the principles and practice of PCMH to medical and physician assistant students during their clinical clerkship year.
  
  
  METHODS
  The mini-course on PCMH consists of three 3-h weekend sessions over 16 weeks and a student project to develop constructive planning ideas for an assigned clinical site. In the first two sessions, students receive didactics and engage in project development discussions. Subsequently, participants work with a faculty advisor and clinic site administrative staff to identify and analyze an area of interest for the student and clinic site. In the last session, students present their projects to the larger group. During the first year of implementation, student evaluations were collected after the first and last sessions.
  
  
  RESULTS
  At the end of the course, students reported confidence in their understanding of PCMH concepts and practical implementations of it. Completing a student project at their clinical sites posed challenges that were logistical, rather than conceptual, and was difficult to integrate with classroom learning.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We present an interprofessional PCMH curriculum for medical and physician assistant students during their clinical year. This course provides students a familiarity with principles of the medical home model and practical experience with practice redesign issues in the context of PCMH transformation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Family Medicine, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, Wisconsin, USA.
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Danford
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Sheline
authors.forename: Viviana
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Martinez-Bianchi
authors.forename: Melinda
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Blazar
authors.forename: Patricia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Dieter
authors.forename: Nancy
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Weigle
mesh_terms: D002908:Chronic Disease / Q000628:therapy*; D002982:Clinical Clerkship; D003479:Curriculum; D006801:Humans; D033183:Interdisciplinary Communication; D018802:Patient-Centered Care; D010823:Physician Assistants / Q000193:education; D012577:Schools, Medical; D014481:United States