STFM and the AAFP will cosponsor the 2010
Conference on Practice Improvement, December 2-5, 2010, in San Antonio, TX. Sessions will focus on various aspects of the PCMH, and practical
information on how to implement the components of the PCMH into your
residency or practice. For the second year, this will be the
conference home for National Research Network members, and we’ll have
sessions devoted topractice-based research on practice redesign.
A key focus for the upcoming year will be on team-based care and
how to address the teamwork piece in interdisciplinary education. We
will weave this theme into conference sessions, plenary
speeches, articles, and more as a way of looking at how we can improve
how we are teaching interdisciplinary care to our learners.
A high-level team, led by Frank deGruy, MD,is developing a
white paper on the need for integrating mental health into
thePatient-centered Medical Home. We hope to have that document ready
for publication in early 2011.
Family Medicine, STFM’s peer-reviewed and indexed
journal, published a dedicated issue in May 2010 on health information
technology in educational settings. The studies cover these general
areas: 1) teaching effective electronic communication with patients, 2)
improving safety and quality, 3) improving workflow, and 4) lessons in
health IT implementation.
To be truly patient centered, physicians need to understand oral health and its relationship to systemic health. The STFM Group on Oral Health has just released a technical update to its nationally acclaimed Smiles for Life National Oral Health Curriculum, the default oral health curriculum for nearly all family medicine residency programs as well as other disciplines. Curricular components of the existing curriculum have beendownloaded more than 90,000 times since 2004.
The group has created a multi-media, Web-based oral health learning lab for interactive individual and group learning. Curricular content is updated and video and interactive case-based learning material has been added along with links to supporting and reference material. Tools to measure and track user learning and retention are also included, along with the ability to provide the documentation of training required by government programs, insurance companies, and professional organizations.
This technical update is available for free from www.smilesforlifeoralhealth.org.
STFM is partnering with a
non-profit institute out of the Dartmouth Medical School to develop a
computer-assisted learning curriculum infamily medicine, consisting of
virtual patient cases, several of which cover the key principles of the
PCMH. The initiative, called fmCASES, is designed to teach the family
medicine core clerkship curriculum in a manner that permits the program
to be completed by a medical student during an average clerkship
in family medicine. Pilot testing and peer review of the 29 virtual
patient cases is complete, and the cases will be available in July.
STFM task forces created competency-based curricular modules infour key PCMH areas: These are posted on the STFM Resource Library (www.fmdrl.org) and are available for public use.
Competency-based Curriculum: Group Visits
Competency-based Curriculum: Chronic Care Model
Competency-based Curriculum: Quality Improvement
Competency-based Curriculum: Advance Access
STFM provided leadership for a task force that created the Family Medicine Clerkship Curriculum, a document that defines a setof common and important presentations that all medical students should experience during their third-year family medicine clerkships. Principles related to the PCMH are woven throughout the document. We’ve spent the past few months distributing the curriculum and identifying how to best use this information in institutions. This curriculum has been approved by the academic organizations of the family and the AAFP. STFM and other family medicine leaders are working with the National Board of Medical Examiners to use the curriculum as the basis for the shelf exam for third-year students.
We recently received STFM Board and STFM Foundation approval to move to phase two, ie, developing the “how” to teach the core curriculum and that initiative is moving forward.
Click HERE to access the Family Medicine Clerkship Curriculum.
STFM collaborated with Boston University on
a Title VII faculty development grant proposal entitled, “Developing
Family Medicine Faculty: Using Interactive Distance Education and a
Longitudinal Fellowship to Meet the Needs of Community and Department
Faculty.” If this proposal is funded, the Department of Family Medicine
at Boston University would work with STFM to develop a series of 12
online faculty development modules designed for volunteer preceptors.
Boston University would be the lead in developing the modules. STFM
would be the lead in dissemination. Modules include topics such as 1)
observation of the clinical learner, 2) providing effective feedback, 3)
learner assessment and diagnosis, 4) the challenging learner,5) PCMH
basic concepts, 6) PCMH access, communication, and continuity, 7)
PCMH team management and inter-professional collaboration, and more.
STFM has an STFM Group on the PCMH, chaired by John Rogers, MD, MPH, MEd, and Caryl Heaton, DO. This group will serve as a key resource within STFM for furthering the work to establish the PCMH within teaching sites. Join the group.