I confess that I feel slightly guilty for writing this post. As a general rule, I don’t like overly critical people who create an ideal past world in their head, compare their forefathers (and mothers) to that world, then complain that the previous generation’s leaders did not live up to the...
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I’ve taken some time recently to read about some of the earliest thinking about family medicine prior to its creation and into its early years. I find that for the most part, the same unresolved tensions we feel today were present 45 years ago. I’ll spend the next two weeks exploring...
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I’m not the only one who has questioned the real impact of the quality movement in healthcare. Robert Brook, MD, ScD of RAND Health has written about similar concerns. In an article in JAMA from last year, he states “ore than 40 years later it is unclear what the quality movement...
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At the TAFP conference I attended last weekend, almost all the clinically oriented speakers showed data from their EMRs they felt proved they were providing high quality care. I’m sure their quality is excellent, but this won’t make healthcare more affordable. The measures most everyone showed included: how many diabetics had...
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I attended a Payment Reform Summit sponsored by the Texas Academy of Family Physicians this past weekend. It was a good conference and provided a snapshot of current views and attempts to grow family medicine and pay for it. There were some emotional ups and downs for me as I listened...
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