The Health Home: A Service Delivery Model for Autism and Intellectual Disability

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and intellectual disability (ID) are lifelong conditions with profound impact on the functioning of affected individuals and their families. Optimizing developmental outcomes requires a lifelong perspective on treatment. The patient-centered health care home (health home) model is currently used to improve health outcomes and care integration in a variety of chronic general medical and psychiatric conditions. The authors propose the health home model as a new conceptual framework from which to build systems of care for persons with ASD or ID and their families. The authors describe essential elements of a health home for these populations, which would be located in a behavioral health setting. They also describe an existing model of such a health home, the Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities in Pennsylvania.