Archive

Perspectives in Primary Care features writing from practitioners, activists, and community members representing organizations, practices, and institutions across the United States and around the world.

Emotional Intelligence in Medicine: A Two-Way Street

In the early evenings after work, I thoroughly enjoy taking brisk walks. Walks are a great opportunity to exercise of course, but I also cherish making time for myself to process the many thoughts that can occupy the mind of a busy wife, mother, pediatrician and medical director. My walks are typically the only time of the day when I can quietly meditate, ruminate, prioritize concerns or simply restore my soul. As I walk, I get to see families pushing strollers filled with young children, dogs walking their humans, and even the stray teenager riding a scooter or bike around the ...

Trust - Abundant Team Principles

Effective models of trust: How can you incorporate the all-important ingredient of trust within your healthcare team? Once upon a time, it was possible for a doctor to hold most of what she needed to know to practice medicine within her own brain. This was long before Google and before medicine was carved up into specialties and sub-specialties. The advances brought on by the information age and technology mean that no individual can know all there is to ...

P2P+E: Understanding the employer role in an improved patient-to-primary care physician relationship

Creating sustainable, timely care delivery models designed to help patients achieve improved health outcomes is a challenge. The complex, chronic conditions of America’s workforce are driving the need for these models forcing employers into the position of leading health care delivery innovation. Employers, the primary source of insurance for 55.7% of Americans[i], have found themselves tasked with reducing healthcare’s unprecedented, rising costs to protect employee health, talent retention, productivity, and ...

The Corporatization of Primary Care: Unintended Consequences

There are many factors in medicine these days that have pushed primary care practice to be mostly a salaried, employed-physician model as part of a large organization. Many of the old personal autonomy benefits have been lost. Rising overhead costs and lagging fee-for-service reimbursement have made it difficult for private practitioners to fund all the required elements of the new healthcare delivery team. Additionally, there are heavy administrative burdens to achieve necessary certifications or just accomplish even simple care goals and also to follow ...

Meaningfully Engaging the Workforce of Tomorrow in the Problems of Today

Putting Care at the Center Last week, hundreds of health professionals who work to improve care for people with complex needs gathered in Chicago for Putting Care at the Center, the third annual conference of the National Center for Complex Health and Social Needs. Through various workshops targeted at idea sharing and bridging sectors and disciplines, participants delved ...
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