MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. -- Patients will keep their primary care givers. Children will continue to see the same pediatrician. Ideally, the whole family will receive care within a single medical home port.
In 2011, Naval Health Clinic Quantico’s mainside clinic structured its care providers into two “medical home port” teams, as part of a Department of Defense-wide initiative to bring a team-based approach to healthcare. As of Feb. 3, the doctors have been reorganized into three medical home ports, with the Pediatrics Clinic folded into those teams.
A “Green Team” was created by pulling doctors from the existing blue and gold teams, and each of the three teams now includes one pediatrician.
“What we’ve done now is to make it a true medical home port family practice,” said Lt. Cmdr. Alana Huber, director of health services for the clinic. “We’ve integrated a pediatric doctor to be part of that team.”
“The whole goal of the medical home port was to make it all-inclusive, to have one team doing it all,” said Heidi Linscott, spokeswoman for the clinic.
For now, some families will end up with parents and children seeing doctors on different teams, but ultimately, the clinic hopes to have all family members on one team.
Across the Navy, other health facilities are likewise folding their pediatric doctors into their medical home ports.
“It’s very similar to how a lot of civilian family practices function,” Huber said. She said the specialists who regularly work at the clinic have also been assigned to the teams.
“Everyone will have their same provider,” she said. “The only change is, they may be in a different hallway.”
Anyone with questions can contact Lt. j.g. Stephanie Beatty, head of the Medical Home Port Department, at 703-784-2906.