The University of Nebraska Medical Center is one of four institutions in the nation testing a fairly new way to train doctors in primary-care practice.
The project generally will train faculty members in how to teach resident physicians - physicians in training - in the "patient-centered medical home" model of practice. Patient-centered medical homes are clinics at which physicians, nurses, pharmacists, social workers and other health care providers work together with the goal of keeping patients healthy as opposed to simply treating them when they're ill.
Such clinics sometimes hold group sessions for diabetics, for example, to educate those patients in how to stay healthy and out of the hospital. More than 100 resident physicians in internal medicine, family medicine and pediatrics will be involved in the program.
For the pilot project, the federal Health Services Resource Administration selected UNMC, Ohio State, the University of Minnesota and Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Illinois. Dr. Kelly Caverzagie, project coordinator at UNMC, said it will last about 18 months with a review near the end of how effectively the training went.
Clinics and offices that will be used for the UNMC project include UNMC Physicians Midtown Clinic, 139 S. 40th St.; the Family Medicine Clinic at Durham Outpatient Center at UNMC; Children's Physicians Dundee Office, 4825 Dodge St.; Baker Place Clinic, 5050 Ames Ave.; and Bellevue Clinic, 2510 Bellevue Medical Center Drive.