Evaluating Medical Home constructs for children with special needs: integrating theory and logic models

The Medical Home model for providing services to children with special healthcare needs has strong philosophical foundations, but the science supporting this theoretical model is not as well developed. The use of logic models and mixed method design provide systematic and rigorous approaches to observation while retaining the complexity, which tends to be lost with research designs intended to control and reduce the number of variables impacting a desired outcome, such as randomized controlled trials. This application provides a historical basis for applying logic models of evaluation and illustrates the utility of logic models.