The Editor's Note

No abstrac

Islamic Moral Values and End-of-Life Care: Examining the Intersection of Religious Beliefs and the U.S. Health Care System

End-of-life care is a central aspect of health care in the United States. Given the country’s diverse population, it is crucial to understand different religious perspectives on policies, standards of care, and medical practices. Religious beliefs impact the ways that end-of-life care is perceived and administered to patients of different faiths. This article examines Islamic approaches to end-of-life care within the context of the US health care system. Drawing on data collected through a literature review and interviews with Muslim physicians, imams, and scholars with extensive knowledge of Islam, four areas are identified in which end-of-life recommendations in the US medical care system parallel Islamic moral values: care for aging parents, time spent in the hospital, use of medication, and the preparation of advance directives. We argue that individuals’ Islamic beliefs and the initiatives and policies for end-of-life care in the United States are not oppositional and provide insight into how our Muslim participants turn theological perspectives and ethics into health practices

Advance Care Planning: Training and Providing an Anthropological Critique of Cultural Competence to Health Care Professionals

No Abstrac

Lessons Learned from Implementing the Patient-Centered Medical Home

The Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) is a primary care model that provides coordinated and comprehensive care to patients to improve health outcomes. This paper addresses practical issues that arise when transitioning a traditional primary care practice into a PCMH recognized by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). Individual organizations' experiences with this transition were gathered at a PCMH workshop in Alexandria, Virginia in June 2010. An analysis of their experiences has been used along with a literature review to reveal common challenges that must be addressed in ways that are responsive to the practice and patients’ needs. These are: NCQA guidance, promoting provider buy-in, leveraging electronic medical records, changing office culture, and realigning workspace in the practice to accommodate services needed to carry out the intent of PCMH. The NCQA provides a set of standards for implementing the PCMH model, but these standards lack many specifics that will be relied on in location situations. While many researchers and providers have made critiques, we see this vagueness as allowing for greater flexibility in how a practice implements PCMH