How Can We Improve Primary Care: A Conversation with Ann O'Malley (June 10th)

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Primary care is considered the bedrock of healthcare delivery.   Primary care services promotes wellness, prevents disease onset, progression, exacerbation and premature death and moderates the need for higher-cost specialty services.   However, as the recent news about wait times at VA health care facilities demonstrated, the US suffers a shortage of primary care providers.  The current shortage, estimated at approximately 8,000 primary care physicians, is anticipated to grow to 50,000 or more by 2020. 

During this 21 minute discussion Dr. O'Malley explains why primary care is becoming more team based and why that is important, the adoption and use of electronic medical records in the primary care practice setting and the emergence of retail health clinics over the past 15 years and her assessment thereof.    

Dr. Ann O’Malley is a Senior Fellow in the Health Research Division at Mathematica, a social policy research organization.   Her research focuses moreover on primary care and quality of care.  Dr. O’Malley has also held faculty positions at Georgetown University Medical Center where she worked on research funded by the NIH's National Cancer Institute and foundations examining the use of evidence-based preventive services in primary care settings.  She serves as a reviewer and has published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Health Affairs, and the Annals of Internal Medicine.  She is a member of AcademyHealth and a fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine.  Ann earned her MD from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and her MPH in Health Policy and Management from Johns Hopkins. 

For more on retail health clinics see this 2013 Center for Studying Health System Change publication titled "Despite Rapid Growth, Retail Clinic Use Remains Modest," by Ha T. Tu and Ellyn R. Boukus at: http://www.hschange.org/CONTENT/1392/.

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