Governor's Office of Children's Care Coordination
Helping children, youth and families to achieve bright futures

What is a Medical Home?

The American Academy of Pediatrics defines the medical home as an approach to care that is:

• Accessible
• Compassionate
• Comprehensive
• Continuous
• Coordinated
• Culturally Effective
• Family-Centered

The Tennessee Medical Home Toolkit provides families and child health providers with the tools necessary to strengthen the medical home approach to caring for Tennessee's children. The toolkit is divided into two major sections:

For Families

This section answers basic questions like: "What is the medical home approach?" and "Why is it important for my child to have a primary care provider?" Families will find tools to help them locate a provider, make the most out of their visits with a health provider, and encourage family-centered care.

• What is the Medical Home Approach?
• Why should my child have a primary care provider?
• Tools for Families

For Providers

This section contains practical tools for child health providers who function as part of the medical home approach. Providers will find measurement tools to help them identify practice strengths and opportunities for improvement, background information on quality improvement (including quality improvement "starters" to stimulate medical home-related quality projects), practice tools to facilitate medical home actions and a collection of commonly used resources.

• Commonly Used Resources
• Measurement Tools
• Practice Tools
• Quality Improvement Basics