Family Medicine Physician and Pharmacy Residency and Fellowship Program

This UPMC residency and fellowship program features extensive practice management exposure as it relates to the patient-centered medical home (PCMH). This program utilizes multiple teaching methods, including longitudinal learning, dedicated lectures, seminars, and small group teaching sessions. Residents participate in medical decision making sessions; weekly journal clubs; and monthly Tech Byte seminars focused on electronic health record, point of care devices and internet resources. Third year residents attend day-long management practice seminars, a coding and billing session, and have didactics on medico-legal issues and risk management. Senior residents are required to serve on a multidisciplinary hospital committee. Throughout the program, residents attend bi-monthly meetings with clinic administrators and staff during which a variety of business, practice management, patient satisfaction, and other quality improvement topics are discussed. Recently, a specific PCMH Curriculum was instituted which includes one-on-one lectures in the first year of residency, the American Academy of Family Physicians Metric Self-Study program for second year residency participants, and PCMH patient-focused meetings organized by third years at their respective Family Health Center (FHC). All of the FHCs are National Center for Quality Assurance (NCQA) level 3 recognized medical homes and host weekly meetings for residents to address practice improvement issues. The residency program of UPMC is also a participant in the Improving Performance in Practice (IPIP) through systems change and data management, an initiative through the Pennsylvania Academy of Family Physicians and includes over 20 family medicine residency programs. Each quarter, nurses, pharmacists, and physicians attend statewide meetings to share progress in each of the program’s medial homes.