Chair's Message

I am not a big fan of Facebook, but I really do like Twitter, and I recommend it to you as another way to keep up with what is happening in healthcare currently.

A case in point is a recent article highlighted in Twitter and published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine about the Association between in hospital supportive visits by primary care physicians and patient outcomes1. In this study, using administrative data, 164,000 patients were linked to 3236 primary care physicians. Twelve per cent of these physicians visited their patients in hospital for supportive visits. Those patients who received supportive care from their family physicians had a lower risk of adverse patient outcomes and increased access to community health services following discharge.

Patients of family physicians who provided supportive care visits had better health outcomes.

This will not be news to those of you who provide hospital care for your patients in your community hospitals and to the handful of family physicians who continue to do this in tertiary care centres. Even if family physicians were to withdraw totally from providing MRP care for their patients, (and I am not advocating for this), they can still contribute to positive outcomes for their patients by making supportive care visits. (I am strongly encouraging this!)

In addition to the positive health outcomes, as indicated in the study, other advantages to supportive care visits by family physicians are:

  • maintenance and strengthening of the doctor-patient relationship
  • enhancing continuity of care
  • contributing to the holistic care of the patient by providing context and medical information to the treatment team
  • reduced readmission rates for your patients
  • easier and successful transitions from hospital to home at discharge

Family physicians need to be engaged in hospital care and the research strongly supports this. The ability to see our patients and contribute to care in multiple settings is what distinguishes us from other primary care providers. Let's not let that slip away.

As always I welcome your feedback at stephen.wetmore@schulich.uwo.ca or you can Tweet me at @DOCSJW

1 Brener SS, Bronskill SE, Comrie R, Huang A, Bell CM. J.Hosp Med. 2016; Feb 23 (Epub)