Breaking News: The newly re-designed FMAHealth.org website has just launched. Check it out to learn more about the work of the strategy implementation team and see new tools that have been launched to accelerate transformation in family medicine.
Health is Primary sponsors Alliance for Health Policy congressional briefing on the future of chronic care in America. This event focused specifically on how integration of care could help address chronic pain and reduce opioid abuse and the need to adopt payment models that support primary care integration.
Health is Primary is focused on adolescent health in September – next month the campaign will highlight primary care to coincide with National Primary Care Week (Oct 1-7). You can download our monthly toolkit at HealthisPrimary.org.
Latest Medical Economics column by Dr. Glen Stream focuses on the need for investment in primary care and highlights new opinion research from Morning Consult. Click here to read.
Join us on Twitter. Health is Primary now has almost 27,000 followers on Twitter! If you are not already a follower, we hope you will join the conversation about family medicine and the value of primary care in America.
Update from the Strategy Implementation Team
Workforce Tactic Team
Primary Care Leadership Collaborative: Transforming Passion to Action
The FMAHealth Workforce Tactic Team is excited to partner with the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) and Primary Care Progress (PCP) in the Primary Care Leadership Collaborative, a year-long national leadership program for AAFP Family Medicine Interest Groups (FMIGs) that is focused on advancing primary care in local communities and preparing the next generation to lead the transformation of primary care. Building on the unique strengths of each of the partner organizations, the year-long learning collaborative will provide structured teaching, coaching and support to enable FMIG teams to have significant impact on the state of primary care delivery and education at their local institutions and in their communities. The program will also catalyze the leadership development of participants to become the primary care leaders our system needs each of them to be.
Over the next year, participating FMIG teams consisting of medical student leaders and a faculty advisor will be guided through a cutting-edge leadership development and “change-agentry” program aimed at enabling participants to have a major impact in their local primary care communities. Supported by both national coaches and experts in relational leadership development, participating teams will proceed through a series of activities aimed at building a local primary care advocacy team to advance primary care and health equity. These teams will achieve this by: 1) completing an inventory of their local primary care community for best innovation practices in clinical care, workforce, and reducing health disparities, 2) identifying and engaging local primary care stakeholders, including community groups; and 3) convening stakeholders for action-oriented collaboration around advancing common goals.
The collaborative launched with an 8-hour training session at the AAFP’s National Conference of Family Medicine Residents and Medical Students in July 2017, and will continue throughout the remainder of the academic year.
National Conference Workshops – Promoting Workforce Diversity & Student Choice of Family Medicine
In addition to participating in the launch of the Primary Care Leadership Collaborative, members of the Workforce Tactic Team led two workshops during AAFP’s National Conference in July 2017.
Workforce Core Team members, Drs. Natasha Bhuyan, Carlos Cunha, Jean Shiraki, Christopher Watson, Kim Yu and Christina Kelly led a workshop on “Building the Diverse Workforce America Needs.” In the workshop, presenters discussed the importance of holding medical schools and residency programs socially accountable for the primary care workforce they train for work around the country. In addition, they shared resources the Workforce Tactic Team created to help institutions and individuals better understand the country’s need for a diverse workforce of primary care physicians.
Members of the Workforce Tactic Team also presented a second workshop: “Moving the Needle on Students Choosing Family Medicine: How to Make an Impact.” Drs. Mustafa Alavi, Tiffany Ho, KrisEmily McCrory, Michelle Roett and Christina Kelly presented research – including key characteristics of schools with consistently high family medicine match rates compared to programs with lower match rates – and discussed findings in small groups to gather student and resident reactions and identify potential areas of impact for medical schools as well as potential advocacy opportunities that both students and residents can utilize.
Health Equity Tactic Team
Health Equity Team Welcomes Two New Core Team Members!
The Health Equity Team is excited to announce its collaboration with the AAFP’s new Center for Diversity and Health Equity and to welcome its newest Core Team member, Danielle Jones, MPH. Danielle is the manager the Center for Diversity and Health Equity. She will play a key role in integrating the Health Equity Team’s efforts and those of the Center to achieve family medicine’s strategic objective to reduce health disparities across the United States. For more about the AAFP’s newly launched Center for Diversity and Health Equity visit http://www.aafp.org/patient-care/social-determinants-of-health/cdhe.html.
In addition, the team is excited to announce that Kim Yu, MD, FAAFP has also agreed to join the Health Equity Core Team. Just prior to joining the Team, Kim served as Board Chair for the Michigan Academy of Family Physicians. She is already making a significant impact as a member of the team, using her expertise in social media (follow her on Twitter @drkkyu) to develop a strategy to disseminate the work of the Health Equity team through numerous social media channels, including #FMHealthEquity.
Health Equity Team Focuses on Key Projects following Health Equity Summit
Following the success of the second Starfield Summit: Primary Care’s Role in Achieving Health Equity, the team has been working on dissemination of materials and products emerging from the Summit. To learn more about the Summit and see Issue Briefs, presentation videos and slides from the Summit, go to www.starfieldsummit.com/starfield2.
Two additional projects:
- Ronya Green, MD, MPH; Methodist Charlton FMR and Jennifer Edgoose, MD, MPH; University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health are developing a Health Equity Curriculum Toolkit, built on content from the Summit, to provide a framework for medical schools, residencies, and other organizations to teach about health equity.
- Brian Frank, MD from Oregon Health & Science University with advisory guidance from Lloyd Michener, MD from the Duke Department of Community and Family Medicine is putting together a team to build a Business Case for Health Equity.
More to follow on these projects in future FMAHealth Monthly Updates and on www.fmahealth.org in the coming months. If you’d like to learn more and/or get involved in either of these projects, contact us at [email protected].
