Resident Time in Continuity Practice - STFM

1 726 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2013 VOL. 45, NO. 10 FAMILY MEDICINEBRIEFREPORTSAll family medicine residents are required to maintain a Continuity patient Practice in an approved family medicine center (FMC) and achieve minimum tar-gets for patient encounters. In the past, minimum periods of time in the FMC were defined in the program requirements , but these have now been replaced with target numbers of patient ,2 As residen-cy programs come under increasing pressure to address service needs and patient care revenue, some pro-gram directors face requests by hos-pital administration to benchmark their current requirements for resi-dent scheduling in the FMC against national standards. Because no such standards presently exist, the authors decided to determine the av-erage frequency with which US fam-ily medicine residents are currently scheduled in their FMC Continuity practices to address accreditation year the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) conducts a detailed census of all US family medicine residency programs, includ-ing questions that are used to popu-late the online residency The residency directory is publical-ly available on the AAFP website, and the data is aggregate at the pro-gram level.

2 Consequently, this study is considered exempt from Institu-tional Review Board (IRB) the data set from the 2011 AAFP annual residency census and residency directory questionnaire, the frequency of reported Resident scheduling in the FMC Continuity Practice was extracted. Although the residency census itself achieves a 100% response rate, not all pro-grams necessarily respond to all of the residency directory questions. In this case, for reported time in the FMC, an 84% (380 out of 450 pro-grams) response rate was AND OBJECTIVES: Family medicine residents are required to maintain a Continuity Practice in an approved family medicine center (FMC) and achieve minimum targets for patient encounters.

3 In the past, minimum periods of time in the FMC were defined in the program requirements , but these have now been replaced with target numbers of patient encounters. As residency programs come under increasing pressure to address service needs on patient care services, some program directors face requests by hospital administration to benchmark their requirements for Resident schedules in the FMC against national standards. Since no such standards presently exist, the authors decided to determine the average frequency with which residents are currently scheduled in their FMC Continuity practices in order to meet ac-creditation requirements . METHODS: Using the data set from the 2011 American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) annual residency census and residency directory question-naire, the frequency of reported Resident scheduling in the FMC Continuity Practice was extracted.

4 Although the census itself achieves a 100% response rate, not all programs respond to all of the residency directory questions. In this case, for reported time in the FMC, an 84% (380 out of 450 programs) response rate was : Family medicine residency programs currently schedule residents in their FMC Continuity Practice substantially more often than previously : To meet current accreditation requirements , family medi-cine residency programs schedule residents in their FMC Continuity practices more than previously required minimums. (Fam Med 2013;45(10):726-7.) Resident Time in Continuity PracticePerry A. Pugno, MD, MPH; Philip Crosley, MBAFrom the American Academy of Family Physicians, Leawood, MEDICINE VOL.

5 45, NO. 10 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2013727 BRIEF REPORTSR esultsThe results of the data analysis are summarized in Table 1. First year family medicine residents (PGY-1) were previously required to spend one half day in the FMC each week, but they are currently scheduled an average of half days per week. Second-year family medicine resi-dents (PGY-2) were previously re-quired to spend two half days in the FMC each week, but they are currently scheduled an average of half days per week. Third-year family medicine residents (PGY-3) were previously required to spend three half days in the FMC each week, but they are currently sched-uled an average of half days per week.

6 Hence, family medicine pro-grams currently schedule residents in their FMC Continuity Practice an average of 41% more often than pre-viously prior studies that examine the frequency with which family med-icine programs schedule their res-idents in the Continuity Practice setting have been found prior to this one. The high level of response rate from the annual residency cen-sus makes the data determined by this study to be of higher reliability than a simple sample of programs. One recognized limitation is that this self-reported data from residen-cy programs is presented as an ap-proximation of the average frequency of scheduling for a typical Resident for any given year of training, realiz-ing that the actual frequency for any individual Resident may vary some-what.

7 This data suggests, however, that in order to meet current accredi-tation requirements , US family med-icine residency programs presently schedule residents in their FMC Continuity practices more frequently than previously required AUTHOR: Address corre-spondence to Dr Pugno, American Academy of Family Physicians, 11400 Tomahawk Creek Parkway, Leawood, KS 66211. 800-274-2237. Fax: 913-906-6289. References1. Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. ACGME program requirements for Resident education in family Practice . 2001:18. ),b),c). Family Practice center experience: Continuity patient Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. ACGME program requirements for graduate medical education in family medicine.

8 2007:19-22. ).(2).(c).(iii-iv). Family medi-cine center experience. Accessed November 20, American Academy of Family Physicians. Di-rectory of family medicine residency programs. 2012. Available at Accessed November 20, 1: Half-Day Sessions in Residency Continuity Practice *2001 ACGME Minimum Weekly Requirement for FMC (Half Days)Mean Half Days (SD) Per Week Reported in 2011 Percent ( )44% ( )45% ( )33% ACGME Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education FMC family medicine center SD standard deviation PGY postgraduate year* Residency Directory responses July 2011 (n=380)