Center of Excellence to Be Launched at April 25-26 Conference in San Francisco

Two of the nation's leading health care institutions, the University of California, San Francisco and Kaiser Permanente, have formed a partnership to help solve problems related to the practice of primary care - an issue that poses a serious threat to the health of millions of Americans. Primary care, the foundation of medical practice in the United States, is widely recognized as facing a crisis, with more family medicine specialists leaving the practice than joining it, and a 50 percent drop in the number of medical students choosing to practice primary care, according to a study in the March 1, 2006, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The shortage and related concerns come at a time when the US population is aging and experiencing more serious, chronic health problems. In response to the crisis, UCSF and Kaiser Permanente have formed the Center for Excellence in Primary Care. It will study ways to redesign primary care, share tools and strategies for putting ideas into practice, and advocate for policy change at the national level. The center is the result of collaborative efforts by the UCSF Department of Family and Community Medicine and The Permanente Medical Group (TPMG), the nation's largest physician group, serving 3.3 million Kaiser Permanente members in Northern California. The center will be formally launched at a conference titled "Primary Care at the Crossroads: New Models for the 21st Century" on Tuesday and Wednesday, April 25 and 26, at the UCSF Mission Bay Community Center. It runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days. "This new Center for Excellence demonstrates the importance of health care organizations investing in the future of primary care," said Kevin Grumbach, MD, professor and chair of the UCSF Department of Family and Community Medicine. "We need to take action now, in order to ensure a sustainable future for primary care." Robert Pearl, MD, TPMG executive director and CEO, said of the new initiative: "We believe that together, by focusing attention on primary care excellence and finding innovative solutions to the challenges the specialty faces, we can improve the health of the nation. Moreover, this partnership will bring together leading policy experts and create a roadmap for the future. We hope that the formation of the Center for Primary Care Excellence will mark the beginning of a new era in American medicine and restore primary care to the stature and status it deserves, for the long-term benefit of the American public." Pearl and David Kessler, MD, dean of the UCSF School of Medicine, will offer opening remarks at the conference. The more than 100 conference attendees include front-line primary care providers and academic leaders in primary care, as well as medical directors and national and international experts on the topic. Also at the conference, UCSF and Kaiser Permanente will announce the formation of the first endowed faculty chair at the UCSF Department of Family and Community Medicine. Named the Permanente Medical Group Chair in Primary Care Education, it is funded through a gift from TPMG with matching funding from the UCSF School of Medicine's Haile T. Debas Academy of Medical Educators. William B. Shore, MD, UCSF professor of clinical family and community medicine, has been appointed as the first to serve in the endowed chair in recognition of his lifetime's work as a leader in primary care education.