Annals of family medicine
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Annals of family medicine · May 2023
Disparities in Diabetes Care: Differences Between Rural and Urban Patients Within a Large Health System.
We sought to ascertain factors associated with the quality of diabetes care, comparing rural vs urban diabetic patients in a large health care system. ⋯ Rural patients had worse diabetes quality outcomes than their urban counterparts, even after adjustment for other contributing factors and despite being part of the same integrated health system. Lower visit frequency and less specialty involvement in the rural setting are possible contributing factors.
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Annals of family medicine · May 2023
The Telemedicine Experience in Primary Care Practices in the United States: Insights From Practice Leaders.
The need to rapidly implement telemedicine in primary care during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic was addressed differently by various practices. Using qualitative data from semistructured interviews with primary care practice leaders, we aimed to report commonly shared experiences and unique perspectives regarding telemedicine implementation and evolution/maturation since March 2020. ⋯ Practice leaders identified several challenges to telemedicine implementation and highlighted 2 areas, including telemedicine visit triage guidelines and telemedicine-specific staffing and scheduling protocols, for improvement.
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Annals of family medicine · May 2023
Patient-Guided Tours: A Patient-Centered Methodology to Understand Patient Experiences of Health Care.
The experience-based design approach using patient-guided tours (PGT) has been suggested as an effective way to understand the patient experience and may better allow the patient to recall thoughts and feelings. The objective of this study was to assess how patients with a disability perceive the effectiveness of PGTs for understanding their experiences of receiving primary health care. ⋯ This method was perceived as effective at eliciting experiences of patients with a disability. It has benefits over more traditional research methods by allowing the participant to refresh their memory at "touchpoints" and enabling them to be active participants.
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In this essay, I describe my last overnight call as I transitioned out of practicing obstetrics. I was worried that by giving up doing inpatient medicine and practicing obstetrics, I would lose my identity as a family physician. I realized that I can embody the core values of a family physician, including generalism and patient centeredness, in the office as well as in the hospital. Family physicians can stay true to their historical values even while giving up inpatient medicine and obstetric care by remembering that it is not only what we do, but how we do it that is important.