The impact of primary care dual-management on quality of care.

Background: Discontinuity is common in US healthcare. Patients access multiple systems of care and in the nation's largest integrated healthcare system, Veteran's Administration (VA) patients frequently use non-VA primary care providers. The impact of this "dual-management" on quality is unknown.

Measuring preferred role orientations for patients and providers in veterans administration and university general medicine clinics.

Background: Congruence between patients' and providers' preferred healthcare role orientations has been shown to be important for improved clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction. Thus, it is important to know how different patient and provider populations might vary in preferred role orientations.

Objective: To measure the range of role orientation preferences among patients and providers in two different general medicine clinic populations.

Patient and provider perceptions of hypertension treatment: do they agree?

The objective of our study was to explore physician and patient attitudes regarding hypertension management. One hundred forty-five primary care providers and 189 patients with hypertension at 6 Veterans Administration clinics completed a hypertension survey. Fifty-one percent of patients were at their blood pressure goal, 58% were on guideline-concordant therapy, and 31% achieved both.