Primary Care Task Force Charter
Introduction.
UT Southwestern Medical Center is embarking on a Clinical Services (“Transformation”) Initiative with a goal of achieving excellence in all aspects of the delivery of clinical care to patients. While we believe the quality of our medical care is in general excellent, we think it is now time to consider how to reorganize and transform the practice into a cohesive, patient-oriented program which will provide “best practice care” from both a medical and customer service perspective.
Primary Care Task Force Charter.
The Primary Care Task Force, composed of faculty physicians, departmental administrators, clinical managers and UT Southwestern administration will develop and review recommendations, policies and standards in the following areas:
1. “Best practice” models in primary care with aligned goals and incentives for excellent continuity of clinical care and for patient service.
2. Development of academic benchmarking standards for Family Practice and General Internal Medicine.
3. Development of appropriate panel sizes for primary care providers.
4. Development of specific recommendations concerning “access” to primary care providers at Southwestern Medical Center.
5. Recommendations concerning development of relationships with primary care providers in the community for ongoing care of patients using our specialty services.
6. Development of job descriptions and recommendations for training of case managers.
7. Discussion of the role of “hospitalists” and development of recommendations for the continuity of patient care.
8. Development of job descriptions for physician leaders and clinic managers in primary care.
9. Recommendations concerning training and selection of support staff.
10. Discussion of support services (telephones, scheduling and patient registration) and development of recommendations with respect to standards, and resource allocation.
11. Discussion of responsibilities, and development of recommendations, related to 24 hour, 7-day per week coverage of patients in the practice.
12. Discussion of performance evaluations and incentive plans.
13. Discussion of the “roll out” of the electronic medical record in primary care at Southwestern Medical Center and potential needs for scanning of essential documents.
Conclusion.
The Task Force will report its recommendations to the Executive Committee of the Clinical Department Chairs for approval and implementation in primary care. The initial focus will be on ambulatory patient care and service but subsequently hospital patient care and service will be incorporated into the activities of the Task Force. The plan for improving UT Southwestern’s Clinical Services represents a commitment by the Clinical Department Chairs and Administration to implement major changes that will impact the entire culture of the institution. These changes are not aimed at making marginal incremental improvements, but rather at producing a fundamental transformation of the quality of patient care and service.
