Health is Primary Launches New Website. The new and improved HealthisPrimary.org website is live! The new site is easy to navigate and allows visitors to view and share stories, access tools and resources, and become an active champion of primary care. Please visit often as the site is updated regularly with new information.
Health is Primary Promotes Monthly Themes in Primary Care. As part of the website relaunch, the campaign has created a print and digital calendar that highlights a specific topic of the month in primary care. The goal is to make campaign participation easier and to coordinate promotion of key themes each month of the campaign. The calendar provides key dates, sample tweets, stats around the topic of the month and content that can be shared through social media. Campaign advertising and posters are available in .pdf format and can be customized with practice and chapter logos. Topics for the remainder of 2016 include Mental Health (May), Fitness and Nutrition (June), Chronic Disease (July), Immunizations (August), Healthy Aging (September), Primary Care (October), Caregivers (November), Patient-Centered Care (December). The calendar is available here, or in the monthly toolkit on the Act page.
Health is Primary Hosts Panel at STFM. Health is Primary hosted a panel discussion on team-based training during the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine Annual Spring Conference. The session focused on the rapid shift toward team-based care and looked at how family medicine residency programs are evolving to prepare the future workforce. Speakers included Natasha Bhuyan, M.D., Mary Hall, M.D., Bonnie Jortberg, Ph.D., RD, CDE and Manisha Sharma, M.D. Noted author and primary care champion T.R. Reid moderated the session.
May is Mental Health Month. Health is Primary has released patient resources focused on managing depression, anxiety and other mental health challenges. All materials are available at HealthisPrimary.org in the monthly toolkit and will be distributed on social media channels.
Update from Strategy Implementation and Tactic Teams
The Starfield Summit Held in Washington, DC. The Robert Graham Center for Policy Studies in Family Medicine and Primary Care, together with co-sponsors Family Medicine for America’s Health, the Pisacano Foundation and the American Board of Family Medicine Foundation, hosted the Starfield Summit in April in Washington, DC. The Summit was designed to honor and advance the legacy of Barbara Starfield, whose research demonstrated the importance of primary care in achieving the Triple Aim.
The Summit provided a unique opportunity for conversation among a diverse group of leaders in primary care research and policy, young and old, and was intended to galvanize its participants,
generate important discussion for public consumption and enable research and policy agenda-setting in support of primary care function as an essential catalyst in health system reform.
The Summit focused on what policymakers should know and where evidence is still needed in order to 1) measure and pay for the primary care function and 2) train and deploy teams in primary care in order to advance Barbara Starfield’s work in support of the Triple Aim.
The outcomes from the Summit are still being processed but will include several products, including recorded TED-style talks that will be available online, issue briefs, bibliographies, peer-reviewed publications and working papers. Several participant groups are considering ways to extend these conversations to include other topics, stakeholders and locations in the months and years ahead. Stay tuned.
Encouraging Engagement with CPC+. FMAHealth generated a sign on letter to private insurers encouraging them to become part of CMS’s new Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+) program. The program will only be successful with active participation from private insurers, including self-insured plans. CPC+ is an expansion of CMS’s Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative (CPCI). You can learn about the recent results of that effort here. CPC+ integrates many lessons learned from CPCI, including insights on practice readiness, the progression of care delivery redesign, actionable performance-based incentives, necessary health information technology and claims data sharing with practices. We believe that CPC+ is a critical next step on the path toward comprehensive payment for primary care.
National Conference Workshop on Achieving Wellness in Medical Education.
The Workforce project team on the Prevention of Student and Resident Burnout has been invited to hold three workshops at AAFP’s National Conference this summer. The workshop will include a review of evidence on medical student anxiety, depression and burnout. Participants will engage in a process of self-reflection focusing on ways that stress or depression could have been prevented in their own medical training and will exchange and analyze various strategies to combat stress, burnout, and other challenges commonly encountered in medical education. Participants will leave the seminar with evidence-based tips, resources and an action plan for enhancing their own wellness during their medical training and throughout their professional careers. (Look for details next month on the Health is Primary mainstage event at National Conference).
Invitation to Participate in Focus Groups on Increasing Student Choice of Family Medicine. The Workforce Team continues its efforts on increasing student choice of family medicine and primary care through different projects and collaborations with the family medicine organizations. There are many people who can have a positive impact on a medical student to help them discover they have the heart of a family physician or realize the importance of being a friend of family medicine. The Workforce Team would like to conduct focus groups with these various stakeholders to get feedback on what resources and tools are useful and what else is
needed to make a significant impact on student choice. We are holding several focus groups during the week of June 20, 2016, and would like to invite stakeholders who represent medical students, residents, medical school and residency faculty, Clerkship Directors, Program Directors and Department Chairs to join in a discussion. If you are one of these stakeholders and have interest and availability, please send an email to [email protected].
Workforce Diversity Resource: Providing useful tools to work toward the diverse workforce America needs. FMAHealth has compiled resources from a variety of sources that can help institutions determine the needs of their communities, develop a plan to improve diversity and effectively educate all learners on cultural competency and unconscious bias. Included in this document are links to resources that will help increase awareness of the importance of workforce diversity and will empower individuals to have a discussion about workforce diversity at their institution. The resources also provide information about recruiting practices, strategic planning, and effective educational methods to teach all learners cultural competency and unconscious bias. This flyer will be distributed to members of the sponsoring family medicine organizations and will be available by May 20 on the FMAHealth.org website.
