Posted on 02.01.10 by Executive Vice President Susan Hogeland, CAE 

Following the President's State of the Union address to Congress last week, AAFP President Lori Heim, MD wrote all Academy members to urge them to help keep up the momentum for health care reform.  Dr. Heim, who will be our guest at the upcoming CAFP Congress of Delegates in Sacramento on March 6-8,  emphasized the need for universal access, lower cost and higher quality, and building up the primary care physician workforce to meet the needs of Americans.  Dr. Heim also emphasized the importance of the Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) in achieving these goals.  She asked members to contribute to the Academy's political action committee, FamMedPAC, and visit the AAFP's health reform Web site for more information.   I hope each of you will do so.

CAFP had a busy week promoting the PCMH as well.  On Monday and Tuesday, Sandra Newman, Director of Health Policy, and I attended the National Committee for Quality Assurance's workshop on How to Facilitate Patient Centered Medical Home Recognition; on Thursday, Ms. Newman accompanied legislative advocate Tom Riley, legislative assistant Adam Francis, and Adrienne White, Managing Consultant, Public Sector, IBM Global Business Services on a series of visits to legislators and legislative staff in Sacramento to discuss the value of the PCMH.  On Thursday, I participated in a conference call with representatives of the American College of Physicians, District IX and the American Academy of Pediatrics, District IX on ways we might collaborate on a PCMH demonstration project in California. 

CAFP has learned that the Pacific Business Group on Health is moving forward on a PCMH demonstration project that carves out high-utilizing patients.  CAFP has expressed its concerns about this approach:  the expense and effort of establishing a PCMH should be spread across all patients, not a subset.  CAFP would also prefer to see an all-payer demonstration project so practices would not be expected to treat a subset of patients differently from other patients in the practice and some administrative burden would be eliminated.

Tom Riley and Adam Francis also continue to carefully monitor the State's discussion on the 1115 Waiver for Medi-Cal patients, which will seek to establish a PCMH for the most chronically and mentally ill patients. 

CAFP's efforts in Continuing Professional Development were recognized last week at the Alliance for CME meeting in New Orleans.  Between them, staffers Shelly Rodrigues, CAE and Cynthia Kear presented a total of seven times, primarily around CAFP efforts on collaborative quality improvement programs.  Shelly and Cynthia, with the help of Sandy Newman and Jane Cho, project coordinator, have established quite a reputation for CAFP as a quality improvement organization.  We'll be bringing the same kinds of expertise to our work on adoption of the PCMH to help family physicians get more enjoyment from the way they practice.

I'll be spending today with the ACTION program Advisory Committee members.  ACTION operates in parallel with The Medical Leadership Council on Cultural Proficiency.  Its intent is to develop capacity among California health care organizations to improve equity in care.   On Wednesday evening, CAFP's Board will meet by conference call for a brief agenda, the majority of which will be taken up with the report of the Single Payer Task Force.  More on this next week ...

Finally, the finishing touches are being put in place for CAFP's upcoming Medical Home Summit for residency program directors and chief residents, being held at the headquarters of The California Endowment February 8-9 in Los Angeles.