The department of Family Medicine has organized clinical care into a series of three teams, with each team consisting of 5 residents and 1-2 faculty. The concept of these teams to create a smaller working group within the department to provide for patient care and allow the team to better serve the patients assigned to that team. Graduating residents will reassign those patients to team members and thus provide continuity across the smaller team. Faculty and residents are available to their assigned patients and cross cover each other when on conference, vacation or out of the office. This has increased our patient satisfaction scores.

 

Grand Round lectures and Topical lecture series have been combined into a single academic morning. These will all occur on Thursday mornings and allow for better scheduling and attendance by all residents.

 

We have reduced resident fatigue by sending residents home at 11 a.m. following call nights, when on our inpatient services.

 

EMR Update - EPIC: Since 2009 the FM residency fully implemented on the EMR. We no longer use paper charts and the system is integrated with our primary teaching hospital including labs and radiology. This allows sharing all patient information across the ambulatory and inpatient arenas in a seamless fashion. The department of Family Medicine is the leader in this transition and is the test site for all of the enhancements and changes made in Synergy with regard to EPIC. The newest innovation is the opening of MyChart, which is a patient electronic portal, to send non-urgent secure email directly to their doctor for such things as advice, refills or lab and radiographic results.

 

Work with Hospice and Palliative care agencies to enhance End-of-Life care.

Increase use of simulation labs to teach emergency situations from the hospital floors as well as patient communication skills and the delivery of bad news scenarios.