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Physicians do not feel prepared to care for the more than 125 million Americans who suffer from chronic illnesses, according to new research.

Patient Safety Monitor Alert, June 23, 2004

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Physicians do not feel prepared to care for the more than 125 million Americans who suffer from chronic illnesses, according to new research in the June issue of Academic Medicine.

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, surveyed physicians and asked whether they felt that they received adequate training to care for patients with chronic illnesses.

Most of the 1,236 physicians who responded felt that they had not received enough training. Family practitioners were more likely to report that they felt adequately trained, compared with internists, pediatricians, nonsurgical specialists, and surgeons. Most physicians (74-84%) felt that better training could have a positive effect on physician attitudes about caring for people with chronic conditions.

Younger physicians reported higher levels of satisfaction with their training, indicating that that medical schools are beginning to address the problem, leading study co-author Eric Bass, MD, to conclude that medical schools and residencies should modify curricula to ensure that physicians are better trained to treat the growing number of chronically ill Americans.

A hospital's ability to care for chronically ill patients will become increasingly important. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services wants to incorporate this area of care into its 8th Scope of Work (SoW). A draft of the SoW, which helps CMS' Quality Improvement Organizations (QIO) establish their priorities for quality improvement projects, states that QIOs should "enable ­primary care physicians to achieve excellence in the care of patients with chronic illness through adoption of information technology and redesigned care processes."

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