Contents tagged with texas family physician
Texas Family Physician - Vol. 64 No. 2, Spring 2013
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Damage control: Mending Texas’ women’s health care safety net The health care … more
Texas Family Physician - Vol. 64 No. 1, Winter 2013
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Meet TAFP’s Physician of the Year: Justin Bartos III, M.D.Currently … more
Texas Family Physician - Vol. 63 No. 4, Fall 2012
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A workforce imperative: Change medical educationTwenty years ago, TAFP … more
TAFP Year In Review
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TAFP Year In Review
By Samantha White
TAFP worked hard in 2012 to continue serving our members all across the state. The year included high attendance at Academy events, a … more
Texas Family Physician - Vol. 63 No. 3, Summer 2012
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Primary care in Texas: Condition criticalFor the sake of Texas’ … more
Defining the meaning of “meaningful use”
By I.L. Balkcom IV, M.D.
TAFP PresidentShhhh! Don’t tell anyone, but I am attempting to practice on my laptop so I might understand how to have a “meaningful” encounter with my patient. I have made progress in technology in that I even sent our chief operating officer, Kathy McCarthy, an e-mail this year—a proud moment in my technological infancy. Now I find myself immersed in a small screen with small print and myriad options for the EHR. As Peanuts would say, “ARRRGHH!” as I erase an entire page by accident.
Now for those of you who are fortunate enough to know all things computer or young enough to have grown up with iPhones, laptops, and MP3 players, I heartily congratulate you. Some of us less technologically gifted are still learning how to turn on these infernal machines and not to treat them like coke machines—beat and kick the “heck” out of them. I wish so often they would say something so I could keep up my tirade. Oh, I forgot. They do talk to you now.
moreTexas Family Physician - Vol. 63 No. 2, Spring 2012
Go to the TFP archive
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Perspective
CONTENTS
Prepare to defend your codingFamily physicians face increased scrutiny in … more
Texas Family Physician - Vol. 63 No. 1, Winter 2012
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2011 Year in Review
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Preserving a family traditionWith three decades of … more
Patient-centered medical home: Are we or aren’t we?
By David W. Bauer, M.D.
When is a patient-centered medical home not a patient-centered medical home? In my practice, the answer is “every day.” In 2009 we received NCQA’s designation as a Level 3 PCMH. To achieve this, our physicians had to document ways in which our patients had enhanced access to our practice, provide examples of how we use evidence-based guidelines to provide quality care, demonstrate the means by which we coordinated care across time and space, and a number of other measures. We do, in fact, do those things every day. What we don’t do, is do all of them for every single patient, every single day.
Consider the analogy of a patient with diabetes whose hemoglobin A1c is 6.9. We would say that the patient’s diabetes is well controlled and congratulate the patient. But there are many ways that a patient could achieve this value. One would be to have very little fluctuation of her glucose from hour to hour. Another would be for the patient to drop into the 40s overnight, and climb to 200 immediately after meals. The hemoglobin A1c is an average, and doesn’t factor in variation. For years, decreasing variation has been the mantra of those working to improve quality, increase efficiency, and decrease medical errors in the hospital setting. As we migrate toward a new model of health care in this country—the PCMH—it would be valuable to embrace this concept in our offices as well.
moreTAFP Foundation funds family medicine research, awards scholarships
TAFP Foundation funds family medicine research, awards scholarships
The TAFP Foundation raises and distributes funds for medical student scholarships for students planning to pursue a career in … more