Town Hall Speakers Delight, Challenge Family Docs

The AAFP's Sept. 30 town hall meeting here was billed as a wrap-up of the Academy's efforts and successes in the private-sector advocacy arena. It quickly turned into a riveting discourse on the power of primary care, led by guest speakers from corporate giant IBM and Internet power Revolution Health Group. Both companies are collaborating with the Academy on projects important to family medicine.

Paul Grundy, M.D., IBM's director of health care, technology and strategic planning, called primary care the "only hope" for fixing the broken U.S. health care system. He said that IBM and other large employers are engaged in a "full-court press" in Washington, promoting primary care as the foundation on which the nation's health care system must be rebuilt. That system must encompass quality, performance and value, he added.

"When I'm asked (in Washington) what system of payment we should have when we go forward," Grundy said, "my answer is, 'It is irrelevant until you have a foundation. If all I can buy is an amputation for my diabetic employee -- but I can't buy care to prevent that amputation, Mr. Congressman, it doesn't matter if it's paid for out of public or private funds.'"

Revolution's chief medical officer, Jeff Gruen, M.D., said that primary care physicians work the hardest of any physician group for the lowest pay. He said subspecialists -- or "partialists" -- have seen economic success because of their ability to perform and bill for procedures. Gruen told FPs to "think deeply about the use of information in your practices" and called health information primary care's new "procedure."

Grundy said episodic care without comprehensive care was "dangerous and unacceptable," and then he challenged FPs: "Show some backbone. Get off of the treadmill of providing episodic care. Focus on practicing what you've been trained to practice -- comprehensive care."