Optimization of Electronic Health Record Usability Through a Department-Led Quality Improvement Process.

Background: Electronic health records (EHR) have become commonplace in medicine. A disconnect between developers and users while creating the interface often fails to create a product that captures clinical workflow, and issues become apparent with implementation. Optimization allows collaboration of clinicians and informaticists after implementation, but documentation of success has only been at the institutional level.

Targeted care coordination towards patients with a history of multiple readmissions effectively reduces readmissions.

Background: To decrease hospital readmission rates, clinical practices create a transition of care (TOC) process to assess patients and coordinate care postdischarge. As current evidence suggests lack of universal benefit, this study's objectives are to determine what patient and process factors associate with hospital readmissions, as well as construct a model to decrease 30-day readmissions.

Methods: Three months of retrospective discharged patient data (n = 123) were analysed for readmission influences including: patient-specific comorbidities, admission-specific diagnoses, and TOC components.

Building a Culture of Scholarship Within a Family Medicine Department: a Successful Eight-Year Journey of Incremental Interventions Following a Historical Perspective of Family Medicine Research.

Background And Objectives: Family medicine (FM), a discipline that eschewed worshiping the ivory tower of research in favor of patient care, has struggled with its role in the world of scholarly activity. FM residencies mirror this conflict despite the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education's requirements for creating an environment of inquiry and scholarship. Because of this, the faculty within the Department of Family and Community Health (dFCH) at Marshall University changed its culture of scholarship.

A Free Clinic Continuity Experience During Residency Is Associated With Practice in Underserved Areas.

Background: Exposure to underserved areas during training may increase residents' likelihood of practice in these settings. The Marshall University Family Medicine Residency offers a supplemental continuity experience at a local free clinic to interested residents.

Objective: We assessed the association of such an experience with graduate practice choices.

The Marshall Family Medicine Residency twINTERN Schedule: The Impact of an Innovative Hospital Coverage Scheme on Resident Fatigue.

Background And Objectives: Work hour restriction has strained the balance between resident service and education. Night Float (NF) rotations are a popular answer to managing this balance but weakens continuity, an essential tenant of family medicine. An innovative short call system for Marshall University's Family Medicine Hospital Service (FMHS), the twINTERN call model, was created in response.

Knowledge and perceptions of the Affordable Care Act by uninsured patients at a free clinic.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has as one of its main objectives to reduce the number of uninsured Americans. The understanding of the ACA reforms by uninsured patients will likely influence the degree of success in achieving this objective. This study assessed the basic knowledge and opinions regarding the ACA of patients at a free clinic and the impact of a brief educational intervention on respondents' knowledge and opinions.

Comparison of academic and practice outcomes of rural and traditional track graduates of a family medicine residency program.

Purpose: The Marshall University Family Medicine Residency (MUFMR) implemented its rural track (RT) in 1994 to help achieve its mission of producing primary care physicians for practice in rural areas and West Virginia. This study examined the impact of the RT on the program's training outcomes and assessed the academic equivalence of the RT and traditional track (TT) curricula.

Method: The authors analyzed academic outcomes (in-training examination [ITE] scores, board certification rates) and practice outcomes (location and type following graduation) for the 174 MUFMR graduates who entered the program from 1984 through 2006.

The accelerated residency program: the Marshall University family practice 9-year experience.

Background: In 1989, the American Board of Family Practice (ABFP) approved the first of 12 accelerated residency programs in family practice. These experimental programs provide a 1-year experience for select medical students that combines the requirements of the fourth year of medical school with those of the first year of residency, reducing the total training time by 1 year. This paper reports on the achievements and limitations of the Marshall University accelerated residency program over a 9-year period that began in 1992.