Ted Wymyslo, MD, medical director for the Ohio Association of Community Health Centers, and Heather Reed Robinson, MA, associate director for the Ohio Colleges of Medicine Government Resource Center, attended the November 11, Ohio Academy of Family Physicians Board of Directors meeting to provide the board with an update on the work of the Ohio Primary Care Physician Workforce Collaborative.
The Collaborative has met, over the past year, with the mission of ensuring an adequate supply and distribution of primary care physicians in Ohio who are trained to provide comprehensive, continuous primary care using the Advanced Primary Care model. The vision of the Collaborative is that all Ohioans have ready access to comprehensive primary care services delivered by clinicians who know them personally and care for their bio-psycho-social health needs in the context of their family and the community in which they live.
- Stabilize and expand the existing Ohio primary care physician residency training programs (producing generalist physicians) to meet unmet and future population health needs.
- Create new primary care physician residency training programs in Ohio (producing generalist physicians) in a thoughtful and coordinated manner in order to meet projected population health needs and have a positive impact on the distribution of primary care physicians in the state.
- Grow Ohio’s primary care physician GME capacity in a cost effective way partnering with interested stakeholder groups.
- Achieve this expansion with consideration of all GME training programs and the emergence of increased medical student education in Ohio.
- Recommend the development of a GME Council to support the sustainability and growth of all residency training in Ohio consistent with physician workforce needs.
- Recommend the development of metrics of success that the GME Council will utilize to enhance program accountability for quality and balanced workforce production, as well as the appropriate distribution to all parts of Ohio.
There are eight organizational members in the collaborative including the person currently serving as OAFP president. To date, Collaborative members have met with the Office of Health Transformation, the Ohio Hospital Association, the Ohio Children’s Hospital Association, the Health Action Council, the Ohio Association of Health Plans, and the Ohio State Medical Association. The group will be meeting with Ohio Association of Health Plans medical directors on Friday, December 7.
Ms. Robinson described the Ohio Health Professions Data Warehouse which is collecting information from licensed physicians as part of the license renewal process to provide a wealth of information about physician practice, location, distribution, and patient access to care. They hope to incorporate information from other licensing boards into the data warehouse.
- Completing the Health Professions Data Warehouse
- Creating an Ohio GME Council
- Forming a coalition to create a new version of primary care in Ohio.