Project Title: Increasing hospital continuity and decreasing hand-offs through rotation template changes Authors: Emily Bender, MD; Benjamin Smith, MD
Program: Fort Collins Family Medicine Residency
Abstract: Continuity of care is desirable to practicing family physicians and often cited as a pillar of patient-centered care. In order to increase continuity and decrease handoffs, the Fort Collins Family Medicine Residency redesigned their historically separate pediatrics and obstetrics services into Inpatient Maternal-Child Health (IMCH) and Outpatient Maternal-Child Health (OMCH) services for the 2019-2020 academic year. The changes were planned to be clinic-neutral, while decreasing intra-day handoffs and increasing patient continuity in the hospital and clinic during the week. Inpatient patient continuity has increased by designing a system where the IMCH team remains in the hospital the entire day, four days each week. On Friday mornings they round on patients then transition care to the OMCH team who has worked in our outpatient prenatal and family medicine clinic during the week. Handoffs have decreased from 6-8 per day to 1-2 per day. Resident patient visits results are pending.
Learning Objectives: Participants will be able to… • Describe the challenges and benefits of combing pediatrics and obstetrics services into one Inpatient maternal child health service. • Appreciate the complexity of making rotation template changes to core family medicine rotations.
Category: Resident education/curriculum