With five percent of patients accounting for 50 percent of health care costs, such high-need patients are the subject of increasing attention as health care providers search for better ways to serve them at less cost.  Such patients are especially challenging when they lack the financial resources and personal support systems needed to address their considerable medical needs.

One of those ways is through the concept of the medical home:  an approach to primary care, also often referred to as a patient-centered medical home, that is a team-based approach to delivering patient-specific, coordinated, accessible care that focuses on quality and safety and that features as one of its defining characteristics closer contact between patients and their caregivers.

Private safety-net hospitals typically care for large numbers of such high-need patients.

In a new report, the Commonwealth Fund tells how one such program, Chicago’s Medical Home Network, is attempting to make a difference in the lives of its low-income, high-need patients.  See that report here.