Inspiring Excellence in Primary Care though Engagement, Collaboration, and Innovation
Welcome to the Primary Care Consortium (PCC) Quarterly Newsletter! The PCC continues to promote a positive, diverse culture of collaboration and engagement that supports high value and quality patient-centered primary care, discovery, and innovation across Emory University and Emory Healthcare. Keep an eye on our website and this quarterly newsletter for news and events. If you have primary care-related news to share, please send it to pc.consortium@emory.edu.
News from the Primary Care Consortium
The most recent PCC General Body Meeting was held January 29th. Meeting minutes are posted on our website. Thank you to our presenters:
- Stacy Higgins, MD: “Primary Care Track within the Emory Internal Medicine Residency”
- Fred Turton, MD: “New Emory Population Health Management Awards”
- Ebonee Harris, PCC Grant Awardee: “Evaluation of Patient Communication Content and Format”
Next PCC General Body Meeting: April 24th, 2019, 1:30-3:00 pm.
The selfie game is strong with your PCC leadership and administrative staff!
Pictured above, from left: LeShea Turner, Danielle Jones, MD, Antonese Wilson, Luke Anderson, MBA, MHA, Jason Freiji, Ted Johnson, MD, MPH.
The PCC welcomes our administrative assistant, Antonese Wilson! Ms. Wilson can be reached at antonese.wilson@emory.edu.
The PCC was a vendor at Emory's Spring Primary Care Provider Retreats at The Emory Clinic's Kauffman Auditorium on March 19 and at Saint Joseph’s Hospital Auditorium on March 26. Both events had stellar turnouts and we were excited to talk with our providers and administrators about the ways the PCC can help them! We look forwarding to having a vendor booth and talking with providers again at the upcoming October Primary Care Provider Retreats.
Pictured below, from left: Antonese Wilson, Leigh Partington, PhD, and Miranda Moore, PhD at The Emory Clinic's Primary Care Provider Retreat.
The PCC and our push to prioritize the clinical placement of Emory School of Nursing graduates within Emory's health system was featured in the Fall 2018 Emory Nursing Magazine. You'll also find a short article about the creation and mission of the PCC in the same issue. Read more here.
Pictured below, from left: Carolyn Clevenger, MSN, DNP, FAANP, Ted Johnson, MD, MPH and Deena Gilland, DNP, MSN, RN
Pipeline Committee News
The PCC Pipeline Committee has begun working on an environmental scan of how other academic medical school incentivize their community preceptors. If anyone has information on institutions that are doing innovative work in this area, please contact Antonese Wilson.
Sponsorship Committee
The PCC SPonsorship Committee has funded two requests for Learner Initiated Professional Development (LIPD):
- Eileen Dilks, NAPCRG Annual Conference, Nov. 9-13, 2018 in Chicago, IL.
- Laura Arneson, American Geriatrics Society Annual Scientific Meeting, May 2-4, 2019 in Portland, OR.
Information about applying for sponsorship can be found on the PCC website.
The PCC Sponsorship Committee is seeking individuals interested in joining the committee beginning in August 2019. The PCC Sponsorship Committee reviews requests for Advocacy, Social, and Educational (ASE) and Learner Initiated Professional Development (LIPD) funds. Committee members are asked to serve for 2 years, with an optional 3rd year. Please email the PCC if interested.
Speaker’s Bureau
The PCC is invested in "spreading the word" when Emory sponsors a primary care speaker/event. Please send your speaker information to the PCC –pc.consortium@emory.edu!
Primary Care News
Welcome to the Emory Family!
Congratulations to Sonya Green PA-C, MMS-c, Emory's new Chief of Primary Care Advanced Practice Providers. Sonya brings years of leadership experience with the APPs in historic DeKalb as well as experiences in providing primary care as a Physician Assistant for over 14 years. She has a great vision, as well as a strong skill set in relationship developing, which will partner well with both our Physician and Advanced
Practice Providers colleagues. Her faculty position at the Emory School of Medicine will provide us with a strong avenue to improve alignment for PA education and a strategic APP growth pipeline. She will continue to work intimately with the DeKalb APPs as we complete the integration, transitioning to her new role on April 1, 2019.
In November 2018, Emory Healthcare appointed Joel Shu, MD, MBA as Chief Medical and Chief Quality Officer of the Emory Healthcare Network. This role supports the EHN’s strategy of being the preferred physician network for greater Atlanta and its surrounding communities, improving access, quality, and efficiency of care for large populations. Dr. Shu will work with physicians, facilities, and the community to further solidify an articulate network and succeed in value-based care.
Prior to joining Emory, Dr. Shu served as Vice President of Clinical Transformation and Population Health as well as Interim Chief Medical Information Officer for Catholic Health Services of Long Island (CHS), a six-hospital system in Long Island, New York. Dr. Shu has also served as Chief Medical Officer of CHS Physician Partners, an independent practice association with over 450 practices, 1800 physicians, and 100,000 covered lives and its own accountable care organization, and held several concurrent positions at Jersey City Medical Center. Dr. Shu earned his MD from Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia and his MBA from New York University Stern School of Business.
Current Family Medicine Chief Resident Aparna Mark, MD has been hired to work at the Emory Downtown Decatur Primary Care Clinic. Dr. Mark will also precept students at the Emory Dunwoody Family Medicine Clinic.
Current Fellow in the section of Geriatrics and Geronotolgy, Monica Gavaller, MD, will be joining Emory Healthcare's Post Acute/Long Term Care team in September, based at Wesley Woods Budd Terrace.
Catherine Park, MD and Dylan Stentiford, MD started on April 1st at our MOT practice in GIM. Jorge Pena, MD will be starting on July 22nd at St. Joseph's in Geriatrics.
Congratulations to Joanne Nichols, MSN, RN in her new role of Manager Nursing Education for Primary Care. Joanne has extensive education experience teaching Medical Assistants, LPNs, and working with RN nursing students and graduates to prepare for nursing practice and boards. She also has extensive clinical experience. Joanne is nearing completion of her doctorate in nursing leadership and her research focuses on quality improvement. In this role, she will be leading efforts around competencies, workflow redesign, and scope of practice in primary care.
Congratulations to Stan Sonu, MD, MPH in his new role as Associate Program DIrector for the J. Willis Hurst General Internal Medicine Residency Program. Read more about Dr. Sonu's training and research interests here.
Congratulations to Thomas Price, MD in his new role as Acting Section Chief for Primary Care at the Atlanta VA.
News from our partners at Kaiser Permanente
Candace Vaughn, MD is the new Adult Primary Care Chief at Kaiser Permanente. She has been in the position since January. Paula Jacob-Fox, MD is the Chief of KP's relatively new Department of Primary Care Providers working in full scope family practice and urgent care.
Join the Emory Primary Care family!
Emory currently has almost 20 openings in Primary Care! We have job openings for family medicine and general internal medicine physicians at locations throughout metro Atlanta. Check out Primary Care Physician Jobs at Emory for more information. Emory Healthcare was recently recognized by Forbes in its Best Employers for New Grads list, ranking #32 nationwide and Emory's Physician Practice Groups received a 2018 Ambulatory Care Quality and Accountability Award from Vizient, Inc., ranking 4th in the nation among participating academic medical centers. This video showcases just a few of the reasons to choose Emory for your primary care career:
Primary Care Faculty Development and Excellence
Emory Primary Care Faculty in the news
Congratulations to Jada Bussey-Jones, MD, the Department of Medicine's new Vice Chair of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Kimberly Manning, MD, the new Associate Vice Chair of Diversity, Equity, and inclusion. Together, Bussey-Jones and Manning will provide vision and leadership in promoting a departmental culture that values and supports diversity, equity, and inclusion. Bussey-Jones will also chair the DOM Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council. Read more about Bussey-Jones and Manning here.
Lesley Miller, MD and Sara Turbow, MD, MPH have both recently been Featured Researchers in the Department of Medicine's Daily Pulse.
Several Department of Medicine faculty were featured in a Daily Pulse article on "Breaking the barriers: minority women in medicine."
ICYMI: Quratalain Syed, MD was interviewed by The Emory Wheel on her trip to Jordan to provide medical care for Syrian refugees. Read the full article here.
Stacie Schmidt, MD, won the Association of Chiefs and Leaders of General Internal Medicine National Leadership Award.
Several General Internal Medicine faculty members based at Grady were nominated for / won awards at a recent Student National Medical Association ceremony for their support of diversity, community, and purpose. Congratulations to Lisa Bernstein MD, Jada Bussey-Jones MD, Maura George MD, Kimberly Manning MD, and Jason Schneider MD!
The following Primary Care Physicians were nominated by their colleagues and recognized by the School of Medicine this year for National Doctors' Day on March 30th. Congratulations to:
- Sivan Ben-Moshe, MD (General Medicine and Geriatrics)
- Stephanie Brown-Johnson, MD (General Medicine and Geriatrics)
- Jerard Cranman, MD (General Medicine and Geriatrics)
- Reema Dbouk, MD (General Medicine and Geriatrics)
- Eleni Footman, MD (General Medicine and Geriatrics)
- Jennifer Morgan, MD (General Medicine and Geriatrics)
- Chinonye Nnaji, MD (General Medicine and Geriatrics)
- W. Clyde Partin, MD (General Medicine and Geriatrics)
- David Roberts, MD (General Medicine and Geriatrics)
- Sahebi Saiyed, MD (General Medicine and Geriatrics)
- Pamela Vohra-Khullar, MD (General Medicine and Geriatrics)
- Laura Waddle, MD (General Medicine and Geriatrics)
- Sally West, MD (General Medicine and Geriatrics)
Resources for Faculty Development and Excellence
Five Things I wish I knew before becoming an Emory faculty member.
Losing yourself in a good book may help combat burn out. Learn more in this article from the AMA.
Upcoming Faculty Development Events in the Department of Medicine.
Clinical Highlights
News from Historic DeKalb
The conversion and EMR integration between Emory and the former DeKalb Medical primary care practices will be complete by the fall.
Over 20 new Primary Care Practices have been added to the Emory family since the DeKalb-Emory merger in September 2018.
News from Emory Specialty Associates - LaGrange
Each employee submitted a championship bracket for the 2019 NCAA March Madness basketball tournament. To celebrate this sporting event, each department also participated in a shooting contest that determined ice cream for the entire department. Photos below.
Primary Care Preceptors needed
Emory Primary Care is looking for high quality educational experiences for our learners. Emily Herndon, MD and Eva Rimler, MD have been reaching out to inform providers about precepting opportunities. If you'd like to know more about precepting for Emory, check out the resources below or contact Drs. Herndon and Rimler.
- Guidelines for Faculty Appointments for EHC-employed Allied Health Professionals
- Adjunct Faculty Appointments and Promotions School of Medicine policy can be found on pages 20-21 of the Guidelines for Appointment, Promotion and Tenure.
- Policy on Use of Adjunct Faculty Titles
- Student Programs in Family Medicine has great information on their website, including information about the Georgia Preceptor Tax Incentive Program.
DOM Clinical Skills Refresher Course
The Department of Medicine's Clinical Excellence Community is hosting a comprehensive Clinical Skills Refresher Course. This CME-accredited workshop will include a combination of didactic sessions and hands-on learning on a variety of topics.
Friday, April 19 | 9 a.m. - noon (registration begins at 8:30 am)
EUH Classrooms A and B-C
Course attendees will have the choice of two tracks:
"A Multidisciplinary Approach to Back Pain"
"EKG Bootcamp + Joint Injections"
Register HERE.
Education Highlights
Match Day 2019!
On March 15th, thousands of medical students across the country participated in Match Day to discover where they will begin their residency training. Emory's J. Willis Hurst Internal Medicine Residency Program is proud to welcome 56 highly competitive interns to our program starting this July.
The Primary Care Consortium extends a special welcome to the Primary Care track residents, including 3 from Emory!
Primary Care Track residents
- Shavonne Collins, Meharry Medical College
- Amara Fazal, Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine
- Alex Galloway, University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Medicine
- Vaishnavi Lanka, University of Virginia School of Medicine
- Nicole Treadway, Emory University School of Medicine
- Ashley Urrutia, Emory University School of Medicine
- Cristina Vellozzi-Averhoff, Emory University School of Medicine
- David Wang, McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
The full Internal Medicine match list is available HERE .
The Primary Care Consortium also welcomes Emory's new
Family Medicine Residents!
Student Programs
Primary Care Progress
Through LIPD funds, the PCC sponsored five Emory medical students and the Primary Care Progress Faculty Advisor to attend the Primary Care Progress Leadership Summit at Babson College in August 2018. The students had a fantastic weekend team building, learning about relational leadership and planning the year’s activities and goals. For more information about applying for LIPD funding, please visit the PCC website.
Pictured below: The Emory PCP group at the Leadership Summit. From left: Erica Webb, FNP (faculty advisor), Christina Durcan, Vilija Bishop, Elizabeth Holve, Emma Neish, and Chris Arthur (students).
Pictured below: The Emory PCP Team Leaders at the M1 Student Activities Fair. From left: Emma Neish and Chris Arthur.
The Family Medicine Interest Group (FMIG) hosted their 6th Annual FMIG Meet and Greet at the home of Emily Herndon, MD on Sunday, March 24. This event celebrates M4 medical students who matched into Family Medicine and offers a networking opportunity for M1 – M3 year medical students. We encourage students to learn more about Family Medicine by conversing with the M4 medical students, department faculty, community preceptors, and residents. The student participation was amazing this year! One student said, “I had a really great time. It felt like home here and I learned so many new things about Family Medicine.” Congratulation to our three matches:
Kayley Alden – Tacoma Family Medicine, Tacoma, WA
Eileen Dilks – Fort Belvoir Community Hospital, Fort Belvoir, VA
Mario Martinez – CoxHealth, Springfield, MO
Pictures from the FMIG Meet and Greet below:
Service Highlights
South Georgia Is Calling…
Preceptors Needed for South Georgia Farmworker Health Project
June 8-20
Calling all Physicians! Please consider joining us as a preceptor for a week or a few days as we provide Emory’s signature level of care to migrant and seasonal farmworkers and their families in the rural farming communities of Bainbridge and Lake Park, Georgia. Now in its 24th year, the Emory PA Program’s South Georgia Farmworker Health Project (SGFHP) serves as an example of interprofessional training and practice for the School of Medicine community and allows us to combine teaching about the social determinants of health with the provision of compassionate, primary care medicine to a vulnerable patient population – migrant farmworkers.
All that is required is your expertise, stethoscope, and the desire to help train PA, MD, DPT and other health professions students who volunteer with us. This transformational experience will help you recharge while you mentor learners in an energetic and collaborative team-based learning environment.
Please click here to see the description of the preceptor responsibilities. For more information, contact Erin Lepp, PA-C elepp@emory.edu.
Pictured above: Evening SGFHP clinic outside of Bainbridge GA, June 2018.
PA Students Celebrate National Farmworker Awareness Week and Prepare for June Outreach
In honor of National Farmworker Awareness Week (March 25-31), first year Emory PA students rolled up their sleeves and began to assemble the 2,000 personal care kits that will be distributed to migrant and seasonal farmworkers during the Emory Program’s upcoming South Georgia Farmworker Health Project (SGFHP) which will take place June 8-21. At the end of their medical visit with the PA or MD student and preceptor, each farmworker patient will receive assorted toiletry items, work gloves, and protective eyewear. Through a generous “Be the CHANGE” grant awarded to the Emory PA Program by the nccPA Health Foundation, we are able to provide patients with a new pair of cotton socks to prevent foot infections farmworkers are at risk of developing because they often stand on wet fields for many hours.
Want to help? We are in need of additional new personal-sized toiletry items including shampoo, soap, disposable razors, toothpaste, toothbrushes, deodorant, washcloths, combs, mouthwash and sunscreen. Start collecting these items now through June 1 and we will arrange for pick-up of your donations and assemble them for farmworker patients!
For more information, please e-mail Javar White javar.white@emory.edu or Erin Lepp, PA-C, elepp@emory.edu
Research Highlights
Grants
The Emory Primary Care Consortium provides grants up to $2,500 to support any project that involves research, quality improvement, advocacy, development of clinical decision support tools, or educational activities in support of advancements in primary care (as it relates to patient safety, innovations in healthcare delivery, addressing disparities in healthcare, etc.). You'll find details and application information on our website. The PCC funded two projects during the past funding cycle:
Congratulations to recent awardees:
§ An Evaluation of Patient Communication Content and Format: Ebonee Harris and Miranda Moore, PhD. The Emory Family Medicine Clinic analyzed the link between communication and compliance of patients with diabetes mellitus.
§ Engaging Patients to Improve Colorectal Cancer Screening Rates at the Grady Primary Care Center: Erica Heiman, MD. The goal of this research is to combat preventable deaths by increasing CRC screening rates through decision support tools and encouraging careers in primary care.
The next deadline for application submission is August 15. Awardees will be announced by September 15.
Using data analytics to support primary care and community interventions to improve chronic disease prevention and management and population health
Deadline: Monday, 4/22 (LOI) The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Award (FOA) is to invite applications to promote health equity and improve the health of individuals and populations at risk for suboptimal health outcomes through the use of primary care and community interventions that address chronic conditions, including prevention and management of multiple chronic conditions. Read more.
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Health services research project: Partners enabling diagnostic excellence (R01)
Deadline: Monday, 4/22 The purpose of this FOA is to fund investigative health services research projects that establish the incidence of diagnostic errors, enhance our understanding of the factors contributing to diagnostic errors, and the association between diagnostic safety and quality and outcomes such as patient harms, costs, expenditures, and utilization. Read more.
Woodruff Health Sciences Center requests proposals for the 2019 Synergy Awards. The Synergy awards support the WHSC Strategic Plan by bringing researchers together across organizational boundaries in order to catalyze innovation and discovery. In this round, the Synergy Awards seeks to emphasize research projects that focus on the WHSC Strategic Plan strategies of biomedical data science and informatics, health services research, cohorts of the future, and enablers of high risk, high impact research that will lead to the discovery and development of new therapies, prevention strategies, diagnostics and devices. Application deadline is May 30, 2019. More information available here.
Department of Medicine publishes a weekly newsletter called What's UP in DOM Research. Subscribe here.
Upcoming Events
9th Annual Bettye Rose Connell Memorial Lecture. April 23, Miller-Ward Alumni House. 5:15 pm: wine and hors d'oeuvres. 6 pm: lecture with reception to follow. Speaker: Patricia A. Parmelee, PhD. "Depression and Quality of Life in Late Life Chronic Illness: Findings from the EQUAL Study." Register here.
Georgia CTSA's Community Engagement 4th Biennial Forum. April 25-26. One Georgia: Building Bridges to Improve Quality Access for Optimal Health.
Atlanta Technical College - Dennard Conference Center. 1560 Metropolitan Parkway. The Forum is intended for health profesionals, community-based organizations/members, those in academia and others who wish to come and share ideas, strategies, and innovations in research, policy, and practice for improving the health and health status of Georgians. More information available here.
Society of Teachers of Family Medicine Annual Spring Conference. April 27-May 1. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Read more here.
Emory Quality Conference, "For Our Patients, For Our People." May 2, 1 pm - 3 pm, with poster presentations to follow. WHSCAB auditorium. Keynote speaker, Dr. Gary Kaplan, Chairman and CEO of Virginia Mason Medical Center. Registration required. Poster registrations due: April 8, 2019. Click here to register your poster.
Broadcast to: Emory Decatur Hospital – Theater, Emory Hillandale Hospital – Community Boardroom, Emory Johns Creek Hospital – Classrooms A/B, Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital – Auditorium, Emory University Hospital Midtown – Glenn Auditorium, Emory University Orthopaedics & Spine Hospital – 5th Floor Classroom, Grady Hospital – Room 108, VA Hospital – Classroom 6C130.
Registration Required
· If you are an Emory employee with access to the HLC:
Log on to the HealthStream Learning Center (HLC) and type 6034 into the search box. Registration is on a first-come, first-served basis. Staff, please check with your leader before registering.
· If you are NOT an Emory employee with HLC access:
Click here to register.
Note: You need to register for the main conference only. The poster session is a drop-in event.
Georgia Clinical & Translational Science Alliance 6th Annual Health Services Research Day, May 15, 8 am - 3 pm. Emory University School of Medicine. This symposium and networking opportunity gives researchers a chance to learn about ongoing quality, effectiveness, and value-based research activities across the state of Georgia. Register here. Agenda and more information available here.
National LGBTQ Health Conference: Bridging Research and Practice. May 31-June 1. Emory University. Additional information and registration here .
Emory's Department of Family Medicine, the Department of Medicine, and the Division of General Medicine and Geriatrics are proud to present the 3rd Annual Southeast Review and Update on Medical Care of Older Adults
July 12-14, 2019
Callaway Gardens
Agenda and CME, lodging, and registration information available HERE.
