TY - JOUR KW - Comorbidity KW - Continuity of Patient Care KW - Delivery of Health Care, Integrated KW - Humans KW - Patient-Centered Care KW - Primary Health Care KW - Severity of Illness Index KW - Systems Theory AU - C. J. Peek AU - Macaran A. Baird AU - Eli Coleman A1 - AB - Primary care is increasingly geared toward standardized care and decision-making for common chronic conditions, combinations of medical and mental health conditions, and the behavioral aspects of care for those conditions. Yet even with well-integrated team-based care for health conditions in place, some patients do not engage or respond as well as clinicians would wish or predict. This troubles patients and clinicians alike and is often chalked up informally to "patient complexity." Indeed, every clinician has encountered complex patients and reacted with "Oh my gosh"-but not necessarily with a patterned vocabulary for exactly how the patient is complex and what to do about it. Based on work in the Netherlands, patient complexity is defined here as interference with standard care and decision-making by symptom severity or impairments, diagnostic uncertainty, difficulty engaging care, lack of social safety or participation, disorganization of care, and difficult patient-clinician relationships. A blueprint for patient-centered medical home must address patient complexity by promoting the interplay of usual care for conditions and individualized attention to patient-specific sources of complexity-across whatever diseases and conditions the patient may have. BT - Families, systems & health : the journal of collaborative family healthcare C5 - Medical Home CP - 4 DO - 10.1037/a0018048 IS - 4 JF - Families, systems & health : the journal of collaborative family healthcare N2 - Primary care is increasingly geared toward standardized care and decision-making for common chronic conditions, combinations of medical and mental health conditions, and the behavioral aspects of care for those conditions. Yet even with well-integrated team-based care for health conditions in place, some patients do not engage or respond as well as clinicians would wish or predict. This troubles patients and clinicians alike and is often chalked up informally to "patient complexity." Indeed, every clinician has encountered complex patients and reacted with "Oh my gosh"-but not necessarily with a patterned vocabulary for exactly how the patient is complex and what to do about it. Based on work in the Netherlands, patient complexity is defined here as interference with standard care and decision-making by symptom severity or impairments, diagnostic uncertainty, difficulty engaging care, lack of social safety or participation, disorganization of care, and difficult patient-clinician relationships. A blueprint for patient-centered medical home must address patient complexity by promoting the interplay of usual care for conditions and individualized attention to patient-specific sources of complexity-across whatever diseases and conditions the patient may have. PY - 2009 SP - 287 EP - 302 EP - T1 - Primary care for patient complexity, not only disease T2 - Families, systems & health : the journal of collaborative family healthcare TI - Primary care for patient complexity, not only disease U1 - Medical Home U2 - 20047353 U3 - 10.1037/a0018048 VL - 27 Y1 - 2009 ER -