CONCORD, NH - A New Hampshire–based health care transformation organization has been awarded two federal grants totaling nearly two million dollars to expand its efforts to improve health care services for children and youth nationwide.

The grants were announced today by the Center for Medical Home Improvement (CMHI). A center of excellence of the Crotched Mountain Foundation of Greenfield, N.H., CMHI works to promote health policy changes supporting improved primary care.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Maternal and Child Health Bureau has awarded CMHI $1,350,000 over three years to create and operate the National Health Care Transition Center for Youth with Special Health Care Needs. The project will assure that youth with special health care needs are prepared for their transition from pediatric to adult health care and that they experience a smooth and seamless transfer of care from pediatric primary care and specialty care to adult settings.

"Our goal is to improve the hand-off between pediatric and adult primary care," said CMHI Medical Director Dr. Carl Cooley.

Dr. Cooley chairs a national committee at the American Academy of Pediatrics that will publish new national guidelines for health care transition that will help provide a framework for some of the new national center's work.

Besides providing national direction on this issue, CMHI will run three separate demonstration projects involving primary care practices in Washington DC, Boston, and Denver.

CMHI has also been awarded $600,000 over two years by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality at the National Institutes of Health. The funding is to conduct research on primary care practices that have gone through a process of medical home transformation.

A "medical home" is a community-based primary care setting that provides and coordinates high quality, planned, family-centered health promotion, acute illness care andchronic condition management.

According to CMHI Director Jeanne McAllister, BSN, MS, MHA, "A Medical Home is one of the critical building blocks of our reforming health care system. The future of pediatrics lies in transformed primary care practices partnering with families to help them raise children to be healthy and productive adults. With this AHRQ study we will learn the essentials for pediatric primary care to fully meet this charge."

Ten pediatric practices that participated in a national learning collaborative-based medical home transformation process orchestrated in part by CMHI between 2004 and 2006 will be analyzed to determine how well the comprehensive health care improvement model has been sustained and what further improvements have been made.

"The Center for Medical Home Improvement plays an important role in improving the care that New Hampshire children receive, and I'm pleased that they will be able to expand their work nationwide," said U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen. "Finding innovative and cost-effective ways to coordinate care for patients is essential to making health care more affordable for families and small businesses, and I applaud Dr. Cooley and his colleagues for their efforts to improve how health care is delivered. These types of improvements are possible through the health care reform laws we passed earlier this year, and I look forward to the cost saving innovations that will continue to be made."

Nationally respected, CMHI currently works with the Special Medical Services division of the N.H. Department of Health and Human Service, the N.H. Citizen's Health Initiative, Dartmouth Medical School, the Institute on Disability at the University of New Hampshire, and consults nationally for various states and for the American Academy of Pediatrics on various medical home-related initiatives.

For more information on the medical home and practice transformation contact CMHI, Crotched Mountain Foundation (www.medicalhomeimprovement.org).

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A medical home is community-based primary care practice that coordinates high quality, family-centered health, acute illness care andchronic condition management. Coordinating health care pays enormous dividends. The mission of CMHI (the Center for Medical Home Improvement), a project of the Crotched Mountain Foundation, is to advance the medical home model and secure health policy changes crucial to the future of primary care. For more information: www.medicalhomeimprovement.org

Crotched Mountain is a charitable organization whose mission is to serve individuals with disabilities and their families, embracing personal choice and development, and building communities of mutual support. Crotched Mountain provides specialized education, rehabilitation, community, and residential support services for more than 2,000 individuals living in New England and New York. For more information about the Crotched Mountain Foundation, please visit www.crotchedmountain.org.

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