Revolution in Education on the Horizon @ TransforMED

Revolution in Education on the Horizon

08/25/2006

And many of the innovations will arise from a nationwide demonstration project that gets underway this fall with a call for proposals for a national experimental project dubbed Preparing the Personal Physician for Practice, or P4.

Residency programs can submit a letter of intent to participate in P4 by going to the Web site of TransforMED, http://www.transformed.com the AAFP practice redesign initiative that also will provide oversight to participating programs. The TransforMED site will contain a special link to the P4 project including the online call for proposals and application. Proposals will be accepted Sept. 1 through midnight Sept. 29.

Residencies will be asked to describe the innovations that would be implemented and tested and address the difference the innovation will make in the program&rsquos graduates.

Programs that submit successful proposals during stage one of the application process will be asked to submit a full proposal that provides more details. At this stage, the residencies will describe the problems to be addressed by the innovation, the essential features of their experiment and how they connect to the new model of care, the components of the residency program that will change during the experiment, the hypotheses or researchable questions to be addressed, and the determining factors in deciding whether the experiment requires alteration and determining whether the innovation succeeds.

Selected P4 programs are expected to be chosen late January 2007 and may begin launching their experiments by June 2007.

The P4 nationwide demonstration project was initiated this spring with $1.7 million in pledges from the Association of Family Medicine Residency Directors, or AFMRD, and the American Board of Family Medicine Foundation.

Up to 20 residency programs will test teaching innovations that are designed to prepare family physicians for the new model of care described in the Future of Family Medicine report. http://www.annfammed.org/cgi/content/full/2/suppl_1/s3

Described as &ldquoa pragmatic, comparative case study of 10-20 experimenting residencies,” P4 is expected to unleash &ldquoa barrage” of new ideas for teaching residents, according to Samuel Jones, M.D., co-chair of the P4 steering committee, president-elect of AFMRD and a director of the Virginia Commonwealth University/Fairfax Family Medicine Residency Program in Fairfax, Va.

Larry Green, M.D., co-chair of the P4 steering committee and a member of the American Board of Family Medicine Board of Directors, agreed. Creativity will be key to successful proposals, he said, adding, &ldquoThis is not a prescriptive project, where we tell the residency what to do. We&rsquore asking them what they will do.”

Among potential areas of experimentation are

Source and content of training, such as a change in approach to maternity care, enhancements in chronic disease management or differentiation for a particular patient population;
Length of training, such as incorporating first-year residency content with the fourth year of medical school or expanding residency training to four years to enhance the breadth of depth of competency;
Place of training, such as more emphasis on in-home care or other nontraditional sites;
Structure of training, such as changes in the order and timing of training components; and
Measurement of competency, such as less reliance on length of time in a competency or more use of simulators.

The innovations tested by P4 programs are expected to initiate significant change in the content, structure and location of family physician training, according to Green.

&ldquoThe value of this is that residencies have the opportunity to develop innovations in teaching family medicine that will change to future of residency training,” he said. &ldquoAnd they&rsquoll have the opportunity to develop those changes without the traditional restrictions” set out by the residency review committee that oversees family medicine training.

Innovative ideas will take shape under the oversight of TransforMED, the Academy&rsquos practice redesign initiative that recently launched a national demonstration project to test the new model of care in 36 family medicine practices, and with the guidance of the 12-member P4 steering committee.

For more information on the project, contact Jay Fetter, P4 project manager, at jtfetter@transformed.com

About TransforMED

The Leawood, Kan.-based TransforMED LLC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the American Academy of Family Physicians. Established in 2005, TransforMED provides ongoing consultation and support to physicians looking to transform their practices to a new model of care that is based on the concept of a patient-centered medical home. TransforMED is an active member of primary care communities and recognizes and supports the unique value that primary care offers to patients and the health care system. TransforMED shares and supports the idealism and altruism of primary care physicians and the strong commitment to their communities and patients through continuing patient relationships and independent decision making. TransforMED offers practices both products and services, including consultation and advice on implementing the patient centered medical home model. To learn more about TransforMED, visit www.transformed.com.