Medical Home

Since 2013, Pediatrics East has been nationally recognized as a Patient Centered Medical Home with the highest level of recognition (Level 3). Medical Home recognition is conducted by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), a non-profit organization dedicated to improving health care quality. As a Level 3 Medical Home, our goal is to provide all of our patients with care that meets the highest level of excellence to maximize health and quality of life. As a practice, we want to:

• Provide “whole child” care: We have care teams consisting of your selected primary pediatrician, a nurse and a medical assistant. The doctor will provide continuity of care for all areas of your child’s health, including mental and physical well-being.  The nurse and medical assistant will help the doctor coordinate and deliver that care to your child.  This includes the services we provide in our office as well as coordinating services that may occur outside of our office, in the emergency room, hospital or with another doctor specializing in a specific care area.
• Be readily available in the office to meet your child’s healthcare needs: Our regular office hours are 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. We also have extended hours for urgent needs and routine newborn follow-up on Saturday morning at 9 a.m. and on Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m. Our call center opens 30 minutes prior to the first appointment time each day to begin taking appointment requests, including same-day appointments.
• Be readily available by phone to meet your child’s healthcare needs: During regular business hours, our call center and nurses are working hard to answer your calls in a timely manner. Our nurses will often be your primary contact by phone or e-mail, but our nurses work diligently to keep your doctor informed about the status of your child’s health. If you have questions of a non-urgent nature after the office has closed, we ask that you consult our website, www.pedseast.org, to see if the information you need is available, or call back the following morning. If your child is sick and you would like to speak with a nurse, we have Children’s of Alabama pediatric nurses on call at all times. A Pediatrics East doctor is also always on call for especially urgent matters. Our on-call nurses may refer your child to the Children’s of Alabama Emergency Room.
• Have access to comprehensive health information about your child: We will ask you to update your child’s overall health information on a yearly basis at Well Child Check-Ups beginning at 1 year. This information allows us to provide your child with the best medical care. We offer a link to visit forms on our website, www.pedseast.org, if you would like to complete them prior to your visit. We also ask that you come to each visit prepared to update your child’s current medication list, including any over-the-counter medications.
• Communicate with all doctors and providers who take care of your child: Our referral specialists work closely with outside providers to arrange specialist appointments for you and stay in communication with the specialists before, during and after your child’s appointment to ensure your care team is aware of recommendations and care plans made by other doctors. We want to integrate these other care plans and treatments into your child’s primary care plan. Please notify your doctor, nurse or medical assistant if your child has received care somewhere other than Pediatrics East since your last visit with us, including any ER visits or hospital stays. We can contact that provider and make sure we are aware of any pertinent information to help us deliver the best care to your child. You may also ask the outside doctor to send us a note about your child’s visit at the time of that visit.
• Follow up on lab and imaging appointments and orders: Our lab specialists and nurses work diligently to follow up on any lab tests, imaging tests or other procedures ordered by our doctors.
• Provide care that is based on the best medical evidence for prevention, diagnosis and treatment: We will strive to stay up to date on the latest evidence and expert recommendations for well-child care as well as disease or illness management. We will accomplish this through many different types of continuing medical education including attending conferences, reading journals and consulting expert sources at the time we are delivering care to your child. You may notice that your doctor, nurse and medical assistant may do things differently from previous visits based on changes in medical evidence. We will do everything we can to inform you of the evidence behind such changes.
• Support patient and family self-management of general health and chronic illnesses: While the care we deliver is certainly vital to your child’s health, equally important is the self-management that will occur once you leave our office and care for your child at home. Whether we are helping you prevent illness and injury through counseling on healthy lifestyles and behaviors at well-child checks or providing instructions or an action plan to manage a chronic illness, we want to give you and all of our families the tools needed to maximize health at home.

The main goal in working for Medical Home recognition is to improve and maximize the care we provide your child. A Patient Centered Medical Home is a partnership between the care team and the family.  We will do everything we can to give your child excellent care, and we ask that you treat us as the central hub for your child’s healthcare and keep us updated on any changes in your child’s health.  We hope you will view Pediatrics East as your child’s medical home.