Primary Care: Policy Briefs

Graduate Medical Education: The Key to the Future of Primary Care?
"A growing and aging population, the prospect of expanded health care coverage, and strategies to mitigate the rising cost of health care all point to a need for more primary care physicians. The GME trends documented here, abetted by current Medicare GME policy, indicate fewer primary care physicians will be entering the workforce at a time when more are needed." Read More...

Medical Education Expansion and the Future of Primary Care
Evidence shows primary care is associated with improved quality, decreased costs, and better outcomes in health systems. However, recent trends in residency selection show young physicians are moving away from primary care. Family medicine programs are filling 15% fewer first year residency positions than 10 years ago with less than 50% of these positions filled by U.S. medical school graduates. Read More...

POLICY PERSPECTIVE: The Outcomes of Implementing Patient-Centered Medical Home Interventions: A Review of the Evidence on Quality, Access and Costs from Recent Prospective Evaluation Studies
August 2009 - UCSF Center for Excellence in Primary Care
"Abundant research comparing nations, states and regions within the US, and specific systems of care has shown that health systems built on a solid foundation of primary care deliver more effective, efficient, and equitable care than systems that fail to invest adequately in primary care. However, some policy analysts have questioned whether these largely cross-sectional, observational studies are adequate for making inferences about whether implementing major policy interventions to strengthen primary care as part of health reform would in the relatively short term 'bend the cost curve' at the same time as improving quality of care and patient outcomes." Read More...

Medical Education Futures Study

George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services

Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation

Primary Care: Policy Briefs