AAFP

The AAFP frequently nominates members to national committees and technical expert panels involved in the development, review and endorsement of quality measures to ensure the voice of family medicine is heard. Measures may be adopted for use in various payment and recognition programs, such as the Merit Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), Alternative Payment Models (APMs), Medicaid, HEDIS, NCQA, and others. CMS and the National Quality Forum (NQF) are two of the most predominant bodies requesting representation of family medicine.

AAFP is currently seeking members that are experienced and active in the patient safety area. This is an area that AAFP believes needs further development and attention in the ambulatory setting. Safety issues such as diagnostic accuracy, treatment choice, medication side effects, EHR-related safety issues, burn-out/workforce, transitions of care and care coordination are integral to family medicine.

Please contact Tarah Remington Brown by email or phone 316.721.9005 if you are interested in being considered for this national role.

AAFP

The prevalence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are a major public health concern in the United States. Frequently asymptomatic, STIs can lead to significant morbidity if left untreated. As a family physician, you are in an ideal position to help address low screening rates for STIs.

Help aid in the early detection of STIs to prevent transmission and future complications. Gain tips on how to overcome barriers to integrate STI screening into your practice work flow. Discover sample questions to help you find a standardized approach for obtaining a patient’s sexual history.

Download free AAFP resources today.

AAFP

The AAFP encourages members, especially those serving a significant number of women of childbearing age, to apply for the Alcohol Screening and Brief Intervention (SBI) Office Champions Project. The project, which will accept up to 25 family medicine practices, aims to increase the use of alcohol SBI within primary care settings, utilizing the office champions model. Applications are due September 20, 2019. Physicians who complete this quality improvement project also will receive Part IV maintenance of certification credit.

Learn more and apply today!  Contact Reshana Peterson at RPeterson@aafp.org or 913-906-6103 with questions.

AAFP

The American Academy of Family Physicians and seven other public health and medical associations today called for policies that begin to address firearm-related injuries and deaths. The call, “Firearm-Related Injury and Death in the United States: A Call to Action From the Nation’s Leading Physician and Public Health Professional Organizations,” was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. In this special article, the leadership of seven of the nation’s largest physician and public health professional societies reiterate their commitment to finding solutions and call for policies to reduce firearm-related injuries and deaths. READ HERE.

Joining the American College of Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Surgeons, American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association and the American Public Health Association in the policy paper, the AAFP called for these items:

• Comprehensive criminal background checks for all firearm purchases, including sales by gun dealers, sales at gun shows, private sales and transfers between individuals with limited exceptions should be required.
• Research to improve understanding of the causes and consequences of firearm-related injury and death and to identify, test and implement strategies to reduce these events is important.
• Addition of dating partners, stalkers or individuals who commit violence against another family member to the categories of people prohibited by federal law from buying firearms. Offenders who have been adjudicated guilty of a crime of violence against a family member or intimate partner, including dating partners, cohabitants, stalkers and those who victimize a family member other than a partner or child, should be reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System and be prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms.
• Laws that hold firearms owners accountable for negligently storing firearms. Safe storage is essential to reducing the risk for unintentional or intentional injuries or deaths from firearms, particularly in homes with children, adolescents, people with dementia, people with substance use disorders and the small subset of people with serious mental illnesses that are associated with greater risk of harming themselves and/or others.
• Improved access to mental health care paired with safeguards against broadly prohibiting all individuals with a mental health or substance use disorder from purchasing firearms.
• Enactment of extreme risk protection order laws, which allow families and law enforcement to petition a judge to temporarily remove firearms from individuals at imminent risk for using them to harm themselves or others.
• Protection of confidential patient-physician communication on issues that affect their health, including counseling at-risk patients about mitigating the risks associated with firearms in the home and firearm safety.
• Constitutionally appropriate policies that effectively address high-capacity magazines and firearms with features designed to increase their rapid and extended killing capacity.

Read AAFP Press Release in its entirety.

AAFP

There is still time to apply for two awards offered in connection with the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine’s 2019 Conference on Practice and Quality Improvement — the FPM Award for Practice Improvement and the H. Winter Griffith Resident Scholarship for Excellence in Practice Improvement and Patient Care. Apply by Aug. 1.