Primary Care Research at Emory

Deanna Kaplan, PhD, is an assistant professor in Emory University School of Medicine's Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, Division of Preventive Medicine. Dr. Kaplan’s research integrates a variety of wearable ambulatory assessment methods to examine health-relevant processes outside of the lab, as people go about their typical daily lives. By combining subjective, behavioral, and physiological real-world assessments, her research examines new approaches to clinical interventions that account for people’s momentary states as well as the ongoing impacts of their environmental contexts and social relationships.

A poster presentation at the Society for Teachers of Family Medicine by Primary Care Consortium members Sonya Green, Allison Leppke, Susana Alfonso, Pamela Vohra-Khullar, and Miranda Moore reveals that preceptors could benefit from training on how to incorporate students into telehealth visits and that a better understanding of the barriers to precepting medical learners will offer valuable insights into improving future medical education. The survey of preceptors was conducted by the Primary Care Consortium Training Program Advisory Council.

This video includes PCC member Dr. Carolyn Clevenger describing Emory’s Integrated Memory Clinic, a nurse-led patient-centered medical home for people living with dementia and a one-of-a-kind clinical model that provides integrated memory, palliative, and primary care.

Primary Care Consortium member Bonnie Proulx was interviewed for Emory Physician Group Practice's new Podcast Series "Continuing the Focus: Empowering the Patient Experience." Ms. Proulx is a pediatric nurse practitioner with over 28 years of experience. She is the Corporate Director of Emory Healthcare’s Advanced Practice Providers, now over 1100 in total. She has extensive experience in provider coaching for performance and has recently built and implemented a supporting structure in her institution to support the practice and define value for the Advanced Practice Providers she oversees. Topics discussed during the conversation:

• The Importance of Huddles
• Hand Offs and the Patient Experience
• Reporting Errors Within a Healthy Culture
• Managing up as it Relates to Teamwork and Patient Care

Implementing High-Quality Primary Care: Rebuilding the Foundation of Health Care (2021) puts forth an evidence-based plan with actionable objectives and recommendations for implementing high-quality primary care in the United States. The implementation plan of this report balances national needs for scalable solutions while allowing for adaptations to meet local needs. This report was created by the NAS Committee on Implementing High-Quality Primary Care, including Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing Dean Linda McCauley, PhD, RN, FAAN, FAAOHN. Click on the video below for an introduction and summary of the report.

The 2021 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) report on Implementing High-Quality Primary Care identifies 5 high-level objectives regarding payment, access, workforce development, information technology, and implementation. Nine junior primary care leaders (3 internal medicine, 3 family medicine, 3 pediatrics), including Emory's Dr. Tracey Henry, identify priorities for the future of primary care. 

"Given that Medicaid disproportionately serves minoritized and under-resourced communities, inadequate reimbursement in primary care reinforces the segregation of health services in the United States. Specifically, we bear witness to disparities not only in access to care in nonexpansion states, but even more egregious is the situation where the patients, once in care, in safety-net systems, are still unable to afford necessary medications, treatments, and specialty care. COVID-19 revealed how this health care segregation contributed to the stark racial disparities in mortality. States should deliberately increase Medicaid reimbursements to reach parity with commercial payers to encourage an equitable safety net. Primary care spending in each state should be increased to 5%, at minimum, similar to other high-income countries that have better health outcomes without the United States’ steep total health care spend.."