STFM Initiatives That Relate to Its Commitment to Changing Education to Support the PCMH Model

STFM/AAFP Conference on Practice Improvement:

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.

Team-based Care:

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.

Mental Health:

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.

Dedicated Issue of Family Medicine Journal on HIT:

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.

Multimedia Oral Health Curriculum:

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.

Computer-assisted Learning Curriculum for Medical Students:

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.

Competency-based Curricula on Elements of the PCMH:

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


The Family Medicine Clerkship Curriculum:

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.

Faculty Development on the PCMH:

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 Group on the PCMH:

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.

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