Improving the rate and quality of medicaid well child care exams in primary care practices.

Background: Providing recommended well child care to children insured bythe Medicaid Program can be challenging. Members of the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine (DFPM) at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center contracted to help practices improve the rates and quality of well child care visits within the Oklahoma Medicaid Program.

Methods: Sixteen pediatric and family medicine practices in three Oklahoma counties chose to participate in this quality improvement initiative.

Patient-physician e-mail communication revisited a decade later: an OKPRN study.

In private community-based primary care practices in Oklahoma, approximately two thirds of patients now have access to a computer and e-mail either at home or work. A substantial majority would like to use e-mail to communicate with their primary care clinicians. Since 1997, rural patients have caught up with urbanites in their access to computers.