Gatekeeping in primary care: a comparison of internal medicine and family practice

Five hundred twenty new patients were randomly and prospectively assigned to receive their care in the Internal Medicine Clinic or Family Practice Clinic of a large university hospital. The patients were followed by residents in training under the supervision of board-certified internists or family physicians. After a mean length of care of slightly over two years, the charts were reviewed for frequency of visits to primary care providers (internal medicine or family practice), Emergency Room, Acute Care Clinic, and all clinics other than the two primary care clinics. The records were also reviewed for laboratory tests ordered. Frequency of visits to the clinic of primary care, Emergency Room, Acute Care Clinic, and broken appointments were all significantly higher for patients randomized to the Internal Medicine Clinic. In addition, the median total annual cost of laboratory tests for patients followed by internal medicine physicians was significantly higher, largely because of higher laboratory charges generated by the specialist consultants. Over the study period, internal medicine patients had a significantly higher number of visits to all nonprimary care clinics and specifically to the dermatology, obstetrics and gynecology, and general surgery consultant clinics. It can be concluded that in this clinical environment, the practice styles of internal medicine and family practice are different.     

Impact of a patient education intervention on appropriate utilization of clinic services.

BACKGROUND: Patient education interventions have been identified as a means of decreasing the utilization of ambulatory services; however, research on the impact of self-care initiatives should also assess changes in the appropriateness of patient visits. METHODS: New patients to the Family Practice Clinic at a university medical center were randomized into control and experimental groups. Experimental patients received the Family Practice Clinic Patient Medical Advisor Booklet and an educational presentation. Controls received the booklet without the educational intervention. RESULTS: Over the subsequent year, there were no significant differences in the total number of visits or telephone calls to the Family Practice Clinic by either group. The total number of visits to other medical center clinics and the emergency department was also similar. The experimental group, however, showed a statistically higher percentage of appropriate Family Practice Clinic visits, and their telephone calls to the clinic for advice tended to be more appropriate. Finally, experimental group patients had a significantly higher percentage of appropriate visits to the emergency department than did control group patients. CONCLUSIONS: Although this educational intervention did not change the total number of patient visits or telephone calls, it did have an impact on the appropriateness of patient utilization of health care services.     

Geriatrics in family practice residency education: an unmet challenge

The aging of the US population poses one of the greatest future challenges for family practice residency graduates. At a time when our discipline should be strengthening geriatric education to address the needs of our aging population, the Group on Geriatric Education of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine believes that recent guidelines from important family medicine organizations suggest that our discipline's interest in geriatric education may be waning. Barriers to improving geriatric education in family practice residencies include limited geriatric faculty, changes in geriatric fellowship training, competing curricular demands, and limited diversity of geriatric training sites. Improving geriatric education in family practice residencies will require greater emphasis on faculty development and integration of geriatric principles throughout family practice residency education. The Residency Review Committee for Family Practice should review the Program Requirements for Residency Education to ensure that geriatric training requirements are consistent with current educational needs. The leadership of family medicine organizations should collaboratively address the need for continued improvement in training our residents to care for older patients and the chronically ill.     

Developing a primary care research agenda through collaborative efforts – a proposed “6E” model

The practice of family medicine is not well established in many developing countries including Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan Government funds and runs the health facilities which cater to the health needs of a majority of the population. Services of a first contact doctor delivered by full time, vocationally trained, Family Physicians is generally overshadowed by outpatient departments of the government hospitals and after hours private practice by the government sector doctors and specialists. This process has changed the concept of the provision of comprehensive primary and continuing care for entire families, which in an ideal situation, should addresses psychosocial problems as well and deliver coordinated health care services in a society. Therefore there is a compelling need to teach Family Medicine concepts to undergraduates in all medical faculties. A similar situation prevails in many countries in the region. Faculty of Medicine Peradeniya embarked on teaching family medicine concepts even before a department of Family Medicine was established. The faculty has recognized CanMed Family Medicine concepts as the guiding principles where being an expert, communicator, collaborator, advocate, manager and professional is considered as core competencies of a doctor. These concepts created the basis to evaluate the existing family medicine curriculum , and the adequacy of teaching knowledge and skills, related to family medicine has been confirmed. However inadequacies of teaching related to communication, collaboration, management, advocacy and professionalism were recognized. Importance of inculcating patient centred attitudes and empathy in patient care was highlighted. Adopting evaluation tools like Patient Practitioner Orientation Scale and Jefferson’s Scale of Empathy was established. Consensus has been developed among all the departments to improve their teaching programmes in order to establish a system of teaching family medicine concepts among students which would lead them to be good Family Physicians in the future. Teaching Family Medicine concepts could be initiated even before establishing departments of family medicine in medical faculties and establishing the practice of family medicine in society. Family medicine competencies could be inculcated among graduates while promoting the establishment of the proper practice of Family Medicine in the society.     

Demonstrating the characteristics of family practice through the family medicine clinic located at a college hospital

During its development, family practice in Taiwan has been housed at the university/college hospitals, and different settings have served as the main bases for service and teaching. To demonstrate the progress made in the family medicine clinic at the Chung Shan Medical College Hospital and to evaluate the appropriateness of this kind of family practice setting, our patient population of 616 was investigated. There were 5177 patient encounters during the period from September 1987 to August 1989. Of 616 patients, 52.3% were male, the average age was 38.5 years, 85.1% lived in Taichung, where the hospital is located, and 60.1% were insured. A total of 117 families, containing 310 members, made up 50.3% of the patient population. Most patients (64.0%) visited us after introductions by their relatives or friends. There was an average of 4.2 visits per patient per year, and only 6.3% of patients were lost to follow-up after their first visits. The three leading causes for visits to the Family Medicine Clinic were general medical examination (14.5%), acute upper respiratory tract infection (13.6%), and peptic ulcer diseases (8.0%): these comprised 36.1% of all patients' problems. The average referral rate among the 5177 patient encounters was 2.9%. Patient education about treatment of disease, immunization against hepatitis B, and screening for liver cirrhosis/hepatoma in hepatitis B antigen carriers were the most common preventative encounters in our clinic. In conclusion, university/college hospitals are certainly not the best site for service and teaching of family practice, since they are not based on ambulatory care.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Community-oriented primary care: critical assessment and implications for resident education

BACKGROUND: Community-oriented primary care (COPC) is a systematic approach to health care based on principles derived from epidemiology, primary care, preventive medicine, and health promotion that has been shown to have positive health benefits for communities in the United States and worldwide. METHODS: MEDLINE was searched using the key phrase "community-oriented primary care." Other sources of information were books and other documents. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Because of lack of predictable reimbursement for COPC services and difficulties encountered incorporating COPC in medical and residency curricula, widespread application of COPC has not occurred. Recent trends in public health initiatives, managed health care, and information technology provide an environment ripe for application of COPC in medical practice. Also, recent recommendations made by the Strategic Planning Working Group of the Academic Family Medicine Organizations and the Association of Family Practice Residency Directors regarding specific community competencies for residency training have direct bearing on COPC and family medicine educators. These trends and recommendations, properly configured, will produce a medical training and practice environment conducive to COPC.     

Exposure to a rural population in a rural residency training program

Previous reports of rural training programs conducted by medical schools have not examined the relationship between the population residing in an area and the population receiving medical services through the clinical training program. In the present study rural household survey data were compared with patient encounter data from a rural ambulatory clinic engaged in training Family Practice residents from the Texas Tech University School of Medicine. Clinic patients were found to resemble the rural population subgroup that visits a physician at least once a year. Wide variations in individual clinical experiences were observed when health problems and conditions encountered by residents were compared with problems encountered in the clinic as a whole. In light of current national efforts to increase medical care access in unserved and underserved populations, the demographic findings raise questions concerning appropriate patient exposure goals in clinical training programs.Dr. Kennedy is with the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Centers, School of Medicine, P.O. Box 4569, Lubbock, Texas 79430. The author is indebted to Angela J. Shepherd for assistance with data processing and statistical analysis and to Dr. Anthony B. Way for comments on an earlier draft of this paper.     

Family practice residencies in community health centers--an approach to cost and access concerns.

An inadequate number of trained primary care clinicians limits access to care at Community Health Centers. If family practice residents working in these centers can provide care to patients at a cost that is comparable to the center''s hiring its own physicians, then expansion of Family Practice Residency Programs into community centers can address both cost and access concerns. A cost-benefit analysis of the Family Practice Residency Program at the Fresno, CA, community center was performed; the community center is affiliated with the University of California at San Francisco. Costs included (a) residents'' salaries, (b) supervision of the family practice residents, (c) family practice program costs for educational activities apart from supervision at the community center, and (d) administrative costs attributable to family practice residents in the community center. Benefits were based on the number of patients that residents saw in the community center. Using this approach, a cost of $7,700 per resident per year was calculated. This cost is modest compared with the cost of training residents in inpatient settings. The added costs attributable to training residents in community health centers can be shared with agencies that are concerned with medical education, providing physicians to underserved communities, and increasing the supply of primary care physicians. Redirecting graduate medical education funding from hospitals to selected ambulatory care training centers of excellence would facilitate placing residents in community centers. This change would have the dual advantage of addressing the current imbalance between training in ambulatory care and hospital sites and increasing the capacity of community health centers to meet the health care needs of underserved populations.     

Defining effective clinician roles in end-of-life care

OBJECTIVE: Our goal was to determine primary care clinician perceptions of what is important to the provision of quality end-of-life care. STUDY DESIGN: We used ethnography, a qualitative research method involving the use of open-ended semistructured interviews. POPULATION: We included 38 family practice residency faculty from 9 community residency programs of the Affiliated Family Practice Residency Network, Department of Family Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine. OUTCOMES MEASURED: The roles described by interviewees when discussing their best practices while delivering end-of-life care were compiled. RESULTS: Primary care clinicians organize their delivery of quality end-of-life care predominantly through their relationships with patients and families. They play 3 roles when providing end-of-life care. As consultants, clinicians provide expert medical advice and treatment. As collaborators, they seek to understand the patient and family experience. Seasoned clinicians act as guides, using their personal intuitive knowledge of patient and family to facilitate everyone's growth when providing end-of-life care. CONCLUSIONS: Shifting clinician focus from skills and knowledge toward relationship, meaning, and roles provides new opportunities to improve end-of-life care for patients, families, and clinicians.     

Reflections on GMENAC

This month HCSM interviews W. Jack Stelmach , MD. Director of the Family Practice Residency Program at Baptist Memorial Hospital and a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Missouri, Kansas City School of Medicine in Kansas City, Missouri. He is the past President of the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American Board of Family Practice. Dr. Stelmach served as the first Chairman of the Graduate Medical Education National Advisory Committee (GMENAC) from 1977-1978 and now is actively involved in an AMA committee studying health manpower, health care resources, and technology. In this interview, he discusses his thoughts on the accuracy of GMENAC's predictions and the future practice of medicine.     

Graded exercise stress test training in family practice and internal medicine residencies

A mail survey of upper Midwest family practice and internal medicine residency program directors was performed to determine the prevalence and characteristics of exercise stress test training. Two mailings provided a 68% response rate for the 184 programs surveyed. Internal medicine programs were significantly more likely to offer exercise stress test training than family practice programs (57% vs 34%). Overall, an estimated 31% of family practice and internal medicine residency graduates are performing exercise stress tests in their practice. Programs provided an average of 7.3 hours of didactic instruction and 32.7 stress tests per resident. A minority (43%) had an established minimum number of exercise stress tests recommended for competency. Programs with and without exercise stress test training did not differ significantly with respect to age, size of program, or size of community. There were some interstate differences in the extent of exercise stress test training provided by family practice residency programs. Internal medicine programs were more likely to require a minimum number of treadmill tests. Otherwise there were few differences between family practice and internal medicine program instruction in exercise stress test training. Family practice program directors were more likely to believe that their residents should be taught this procedure and to include family physicians in their panel of instructors. Specific guidelines should be created to assure adequate stress test training for interested residents.     

Nutrition Academic Award: nutrition education in graduate medical education

The Nutrition Academic Award received by Tufts University School of Medicine strengthened our first-year Nutrition and Medicine course and clearly resulted in more nutrition in third-year clerkships and residency programs. Standardized patient cases in nutrition counseling for cardiovascular disease and weight loss were developed and incorporated into the clerkships and residency programs in internal medicine and family medicine. This was a value-added benefit that provided practice in initiating lifestyle changes and motivational skills, while expanding nutrition education. Eight standardized patient educators were trained in collaboration with physicians in internal and family medicine. Six slide shows on nutrition topics, 1-2 h each, were developed and included clinical cases, dietary analysis, and patient handouts. The Medicine Clerkship included 4 nutrition sessions and the standardized patient experience, whereas the Family Medicine Clerkship included 1 nutrition session and the standardized patient experience. Working with faculty in the Department of Family Medicine, we developed a nutrition mentoring program for the family medicine residents and used 3 nutrition messages that were a modification of the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet to teach diet evaluation, intervention strategies, feedback from nutrition referrals, and follow-up. Seven sessions on nutrition and chronic disease with cases were offered to the residents in family medicine, which concluded with a nutrition intervention session using standardized patient educators. This expanded nutrition program in internal and family medicine along with the standardized patient experience receives excellent ratings from physicians, residents, and medical students.     

Following depression in primary care: do family practice physicians ask about depression at different rates than internal medicine physicians?

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether the chronically or recurrently depressed patients of family practice and internal medicine physicians differed in the proportion reporting that their primary care physician asked them about depression symptoms. DESIGN: A cross-sectional observational study of chronically or recurrently depressed survey respondents who identified a family practice or internal medicine physician as their primary care provider. SETTING: A large not-for-profit group-model health maintenance organization in the northwestern United States, with a population representative of its service area. PATIENTS: Health maintenance organization members (n= 1161) with ongoing or recurring depression or dysthymia who responded to a 1993 survey and who identified either a family practice or internal medicine physician as their primary care provider. Main Outcome Measure: Patients' self-report of their primary care physician asking them: (1) whether they had been feeling sad, blue, or depressed; (2) to fill out a questionnaire about their mood or feelings; and (3) whether they had been thinking about death or suicide. RESULTS: Chronically or recurrently depressed patients of family practice physicians were more likely to report that their physician asked them about depressive symptoms than were patients of internal medicine physicians (34.0% vs 27.3%) (P=.02). This finding persisted in a multivariate analysis. CONCLUSION: Family practice physicians may be more attentive to depressive disorders than internal medicine physicians.     

Finding POEMs in the medical literature.

Articles about primary care topics that measure patient-oriented outcomes (eg, morbidity, mortality, quality of life) should change practice, if the reported results are valid. We call these types of articles POEMs--Patient-Oriented Evidence that Matters. The extent and distribution of POEMs in the medical literature is unknown. We identified 85 medical journals of potential interest to primary care physicians, and counted 8085 original research articles over a 6-month period; 211 of those articles were POEMs (2.6%). Ten journals accounted for 50% of the POEMs identified during the study period: Journal of the American Medical Association, Annals of Internal Medicine, New England Journal of Medicine, Archives of Internal Medicine, Lancet, British Medical Journal, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Arthritis and Rheumatology, American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Other journals with a high percentage of POEMs were: Journal of Family Practice, Journal of the American Board of Family Practice, and American Journal of Emergency Medicine. Half the journals we surveyed published 0 or 1 POEMs during the study period. Not all clinicians have the time, inclination, or access to review a large number of journals on a regular basis. By focusing on POEMs and the journals that publish them, busy physicians can avoid reading 98% of the original research published each month. This will not only drastically cut physicians' reading time, but also help them obtain the information that is most valuable for their patients.     

The Göktaş definition of family medicine/general practice

Family medicine is the first gateway to primary health care in health systems. This feature makes the definition of family medicine complex due to its inclusive, holistic and continuous approach. The definition of family medicine should include the professional individual aspect of the family physician as well as its duties, authorities and responsibilities.¹ Since the development of family medicine, definitions of the discipline have been frequently modified and updated, continuing to the present day. Family medicine represents the most basic aspect of the health-care system, which makes developing such definitions quite complex, and definitions must be revised and updated as conditions change. The first definition of family medicine, presented in 1974, was followed by a definition by Olesen et al. in 2000, and later by the European Society of General Practice/Family Medicine (WONCA Europe) in 2002. The WONCA Europe definition was then updated in 2011. Although this last definition explains family medicine in the most detailed way, today it needs updating especially in defining the individual characteristics of family medicine and its relations with the environment. There is a need to define the highly intensive role of family physicians while considering, the physicians’ spiritual and personal agenda as human beings. The Gökta? definition of family medicine/general practice, which was suggested at the WONCA Europe 2018 conference in Krakow, Poland, represents a suitable means of completing the 2011 WONCA Europe definition in this regard.     

Preparing physicians for careers in primary care internal medicine: 17 years of residency experience.

The objective of this survey was to demonstrate whether a primary care track internal medicine residency program emphasizing community-based health care of the urban sick poor trains physicians who will continue to practice in general internal medicine or similar fields. Thirty-five primary care residents (100% of graduates) who trained from 1976 through 1993 in the Adult Primary Care Track of the Internal Medicine Residency Program at St. Vincent''s Hospital, New York were used as participants.     

A student health HMO as a partnership model within an academic medical center

The Department of Family Practice, College of Medicine, in partnership with the University of Illinois at Chicago, was responsible for the reorganization of the Student Health Service into a health maintenance organization (HMO), Campus Care. Historically, the two campuses of the University of Illinois at Chicago operated student health as an infirmary model. Reorganization of student health into the Campus Care HMO provided expanded health care services to students, preserved more health care dollars in the university system, and provided a nonincremental increase in the size and responsibility of the Department of Family Practice. One year's experience showed that while the capitation was low compared with standard HMOs, the variable and less frequent use of services by the student population resulted in a fiscally viable operation. Numerous transition difficulties were encountered, including the need for rapid systems conversion within a complex university system, reeducation of students as well as traditional university-based practitioners for operation in a managed care system, and the rapid expansion of a small family practice department. The positive experience of the University of Illinois at Chicago supports the notion that family practice is better suited to providing student health care than other primary care disciplines. Three issues are paramount to success: (1) approval, support, and protection by higher level administration from university territorialism, (2) a core family practice faculty with strong leadership and experience in high-volume clinical activity, and (3) a close examination of financial resources in light of expected utilization.     

Knowledge, attitude, practice and performance of family physicians concerning holistic management of hypertension

Holistic medicine emphasizes looking for any patient as a whole, putting in consideration the psychological, social, cultural and environmental factors. Family Practice is a good area for applying this approach. The aim of the present study was to assess Family Physicians' knowledge, attitude, practice and performance concerning holistic management of hypertensive patients. The study included all family physicians working in 5 family medicine facilities (n=27) in Alexandria Governorate. A KAP questionnaire was designed to assess their knowledge, attitude and practice. An observation checklist was designed to check their performance with hypertensive patients. The results revealed that male physicians had better knowledge than females. None of the physicians had negative attitude towards holistic care for hypertensive patients, while male physicians had better practice level than females (81.8%, 62.5% respectively). Moreover, the differences in performance level when distributed by health facility were statistically significant, where the majority of physicians with good performance level were in El-Seyouf family health centre (FHC) (65.7%), while the majority of physicians with poor performance level were in Mohsen family health unit (FHU) (82.4%). Continuing Medical Education (EMC) and training are recommended to increase family physicians' competency and help them to develop the necessary skills.