• Patient Experience Assessment Tool: which assesses which practice attributes are most important in the eyes of the patient and not what the practice considered important to the patient. PEAT now enables practices to receive real time feedback from patients, prompting them to pay thoughtful attention to the patient experience throughout the PCMH transformation process.

Integrating PEAT with the practice management solution is still a work in progress, says McGeeney.  They are currently configuring it so that it automatically populates patient data. 

McGeeney says everyone of these tools was developed as a result of the demonstration and are "perfect examples of why the demonstration project was so important."

To date, TransforMED has seen evidence that implementing PCMH components is well worth the time and effort required. At the conclusion of the project, NDP participants from each practice formed a group to enable them to stay in touch and continue learning from one another. The group's members – who call themselves the Touchstone Group – acknowledge transformation is not easy, but still advocate for the new model and would not be willing to return to pre-NDP ways of practicing medicine.

 "Recommendations for the patient-centered medical home model will continue to come forth, but the TransforMED NDP achieved what it set out to do," said AAFP President, Lori Heim, MD.

The report is published as a series of manuscripts in a special supplement to the May/June 2010 Annals of Family Medicine. The title of the report is "Evolution of the American Academy of Family Physicians' Patient-Centered Medical Home National Demonstration Project."