Policy center opens soon in Washington
AAFP's Center for Policy Studies in Family Practice and Primary Care will soon be a reality.
Early last month, the Academy leased space for the policy center next door to AAFP's Washington office.
"In 1999, we've got to assemble our staff, appoint an advisory committee, and establish working relationships with the health policy community in Washington and with kindred spirits outside D.C., including practice-based research networks and AAFP's three newly designated research centers based at universities," said Larry A. Green, M.D., the policy center's director.
"By mid-1999, we should be ready to work -- to start investigating questions and responding to policy issues," Green said.
He will chair the family medicine department at the University of Colorado in Denver until June 1. Then he'll take a two-year leave from the CU faculty to direct the policy center full-time.
He's already asked several hundred family physicians and others, "What's the most important policy issue facing primary care today?"
Many replies revolved around the scope of practice. For example: In the future, will family physicians admit patients to hospitals? What's the primary care provider's role in hospice care?
The center will provide a family practice perspective to policy deliberations in the nation's capital. It will also conduct research to support the development of and advocacy for AAFP policies.
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department. Copyright © 1999 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
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