The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has released a new Evaluation Guide for designing real-world evaluations of interventions such as the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) and other models to improve primary care delivery. Effective primary care can improve health and cost outcomes, and patient, clinician and staff experience, and evaluations can help determine how best to improve primary care to achieve these goals.

The Guide, developed with researchers at Mathematica Policy Research under a contract with AHRQ, presents practical steps for designing an evaluation and is intended for evaluators affiliated with delivery systems, employers, practice-based research networks, local or regional insurers, and others who want to test an intervention in a relatively small number of primary care practices, and who may have limited resources to evaluate the intervention.