Contrasting Bellin Health’s Team Model With the Traditional Model
| Traditional Model | Bellin Health Model | |
|---|---|---|
| Composition of core team | 1 clinician, 1 medical assistant | 1 clinician, 2 medical assistants (CTCs) |
| Who is in the patient visit? | Patient and clinician | Patient, clinician, and CTC |
| How does the visit proceed? | MA rooms patient, performs a few functions such as medication reconciliation, and leaves | CTC spends 10-15 minutes with the patient before the clinician enters, setting the agenda, taking the history, reconciling medications, identifying and closing care gaps. When the clinician enters the CTC scribes. When the clinician leaves the CTC explains the after-visit summary, may do teachback and health coaching, and helps with navigation. |
| Who documents the visit? | Clinician does 90% of documentation | CTC does 90% of documentation, entering findings and pending orders. Clinician quickly checks the chart and sends off orders. |
| Who answers most in-box messages? | Clinician | CTC can answer many of the messages without taking clinician time because CTC was in the visit, knows the patients, and is trusted by the patients |
| Training | Standard medical assistant training | CTC training is intensive; poorly trained CTCs could sink the program |
| How is the additional team member paid for? | Doing little documentation, clinicians have time to see more patients, paying for the extra team member | |
| Quality metrics | Cancer screening, immunizations, chronic disease metrics improved with team care | |
| Is patient access affected? | Before the model was implemented, 71% of patients received a timely appointment | With the team model adding capacity, 97% of patients receive timely access. |
| How is clinician satisfaction affected? | Before the model was implemented, physician satisfaction was 70% | With the team model, physician satisfaction reached 90% |
CTC = care team coordinator; MA = medical assistant.