J Am Board Fam Med
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Family medicine physicians often see headache as the chief complaint when meeting patients within their practice. The goal is to try different treatment modalities without having to send the patient to a specialist. Headaches affect different individuals during their lifetime. ⋯ Nonpharmacological treatment is recommended first before attempting a stepwise approach to cost-effective pharmacological treatment options. Pharmacological treatment options should include preventive and on-demand options. A family physician has all the resources to assist patients with different types of headaches.
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The rising obesity epidemic is a phenomenon that has gained increasing attention from health providers and health policy makers. This led to recognition of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (MASLD). The standard for its assessment has been histologic, which is neither practical nor acceptable by patients. ⋯ Imaging methods are useful in evaluation, estimation, and following the progression of steatosis and fibrosis with particular attention to controlled attenuation parameter (CAP) and MRI-Proton Density Fat Fraction (MRI-PDFF). The choices for the family physician are broad and rely on tests' availability, cost, and patient acceptance. Great efforts have been undertaken to produce more robust and novel noninvasive markers that indicate fibrinogenesis directly in an implementable and cost-effective way.
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High-quality primary care can reduce avoidable emergency department visits and emergency hospitalizations. The availability of electronic medical record (EMR) data and capacities for data storage and processing have created opportunities for predictive analytics. This systematic review examines studies which predict emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and mortality using EMR data from primary care. ⋯ This review helps address critical gaps in the literature regarding the potential of primary care EMR data. Despite further work required to address bias and improve the quality and reporting of prediction models, the use of primary care EMR data for predictive analytics holds promise.
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Higher trust in healthcare providers has been linked to better health outcomes and satisfaction. Lower trust has been associated with healthcare-based discrimination. ⋯ Patients and caregivers reporting more healthcare-based discrimination were less likely to report high provider trust. Interventions to strengthen trust need structural antiracist components. Increased rapport with patients may be a potential by-product of social screening. Further research is needed on screening and trust.
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Two decades into the era of Electronic Health Records (EHRs), the promise of streamlining clinical care, reducing burden, and improving patient outcomes has yet to be realized. A cross-sectional family physician census conducted by the American Board of Family Medicine in 2022 and 2023 included self-reported physician EHR satisfaction. Of the nearly 10,000 responding family physicians, only one-in-four (26.2%) report being very satisfied and one-in-three (33.8%) were not satisfied. These low levels of satisfaction point to the need for greater transparency in the marketplace and pressure to increase user-centric EHR design.