Teresa M. Waters, PhD and Peter P. Budetti, MD, JD
The National Practitioner Data Bank attempts to help maintain a level of quality and safety assurance by providing data on the clinical competence of physicians.
While physicians have a duty to treat even at the risk of their own personal safety, citizens also have minimal obligations to assist those protecting them during bioterrorism or natural disasters.
The New Model of Practice in Family Medicine has been designed to improve patient care and alleviate financial and administrative pressures on family physicians.
A residency program director supports a shortened 2-year family medicine residency program that emphasizes primary care in the ambulatory setting and also allows family physicians to receive additional postgraduate training in their specialty areas of interest.
Marguerite Duane, MD, MHA and Robert L. Phillips, Jr., MD, MSPH
Two physicians argue in favor of extending residency training for family medicine physicians to 4 years so they will be adequately prepared to participate in family medicine's new model of care.
A journal author argues that the current health system puts too much emphasis on patient safety when our resources should instead be aimed at the programs and activities that will result in the greatest overall improvement in patient health.
Health savings accounts should not be the focus of a strategy to expand health care coverage to the uninsured, but should be considered complementary to more fundamental health care reform.
Utah's preventive care plan for the uninsured offers limited benefit for young healthy individuals but does not provide the necessary care for it's more chronically ill participants.