Resource Center

BACKGROUND:

A high proportion of the US primary care workforce reports burnout, which is associated with negative consequences for clinicians and patients. Many protective factors from burnout are characteristics of patient-centered medical home (PCMH) models, though even positive organizational transformation is often stressful. The existing literature on the effects of PCMH on burnout is limited, with most findings based on small-scale demonstration projects with data collected only among physicians, and the results are mixed.

OBJECTIVE:

BACKGROUND:

Work conditions in primary care are associated with physician burnout and lower quality of care.

OBJECTIVE:

We aimed to assess if improvements in work conditions improve clinician stress and burnout.

SUBJECTS:

Primary care clinicians at 34 clinics in the upper Midwest and New York City participated in the study.

STUDY DESIGN:

This was a cluster randomized controlled trial.

MEASURES:

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) affords opportunities to sustain the role of community health workers (CHWs). Among myriad strategies encouraged by PPACA are prevention and care coordination, particularly for chronic diseases, chief drivers of increased health care costs. Prevention and care coordination are functions that have been performed by CHWs for decades, particularly among underserved populations. The two key delivery models promoted in the PPACA are accountable care organizations and health homes.

Silence Kills was conducted immediately before AACN’s national standards for healthy work environments were released. It identified seven concerns that often go undiscussed and contribute to avoidable medical errors. It linked the ability of health professionals to discuss emotionally and politically risky topics in a healthcare setting to key results like patient safety, quality of care, and nursing turnover, among others.

To determine the impact of a multidisciplinary, student-run, free clinic on health professional students’ attitudes towards the underserved and interprofessionalism attitudes and skills. We hypothesize that these students will show better attitudes and skills than those students not volunteering in the clinic. Many health professional schools find it challenging to teach interprofessionalism in a way that is both valued by students and impactful on the outcome of changing the attitudes and behaviors towards students from other professions.

Communications strategies are central to the planning and execution of interprofessional education (IPE) programs. The diversity of telecommunications-based tools and platforms available for IPE is rapidly expanding. Each tool and platform has a potentially important role to play. The selection, testing, and embedding of tools, such as social networking platforms, within education programs can be very challenging.

Most experts, including the conference sponsors and the IPEC panel, believe that in order to deliver high-quality, safe and efficient care, and meet the public’s increasingly complex health care needs, the educational experience must shift from one in which health profession students are educated in silos to one that fosters collaboration, communication and a team approach to providing care.

A study in an English Faculty of Health and Social Care explores the effects of a pre-qualifying interprofessional curriculum incorporating interprofessional modules in each year of study. The study design involves collecting data on entry to the Faculty, after completion of the second interprofessional module, on qualification and after 9 months qualified practice. At each point, students complete questionnaires concerning communication and teamwork skills and interprofessional learning and working. This paper presents results from 723 students at the second data collection point.

Since introducing dermatology at the Phillips Neighborhood Clinic (PNC), we have successfully treated and made an impact on over 40 patients with varying dermatological conditions and created an effective follow-up protocol for patients seen. As a student-run free clinic, the PNC encounters patients with diverse medical problems that we often cannot address at the clinic. Problems that we often see are patients dealing with mild to severe skin conditions that could be easily addressed by a dermatologist.

The Phillips Neighborhood Clinic (PNC) is a completely student run clinic that offers free, high quality, comprehensive care to a patient population that otherwise lacks access to such services. The PNC achieves this through three main principles:

(1)interdisciplinary care, (2) student leadership, and (3) community collaboration.

This document explains the three PNC principles.