The Dream Team of the ABFM and AAFP Come Together

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I found this article in the a recent American Family Physician magazine:

ABFM and AAFP Team Up to Help Family Physicians Transform Their Practices
The American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) is one of 39 health care collaborative networks selected to participate in the federal Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative. The initiative was designed to help physicians transform their practices to enhance care coordination and expand information-sharing. The ABFM, in partnership with the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), will receive as much as $538,000 to help offer the tools, information, and network support that physicians need to improve the quality of care they provide, increase patients’ access to information, and ensure more judicious use of health care dollars. The initiative is part of a strategy advanced by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to strengthen quality of care and rein in health care spending. Its ultimate goal is to support 150,000 clinical practices in their efforts to share, adapt, and further develop their comprehensive quality improvement strategies over four years.

Now think about this.  Two groups of extremely rich organizations that do very little to advance the much needed profession of family practice are coming together.  Alert the media! I can visualize a lot of meetings or retreats at posh hotels so they can rack their brains on how to transform your practice.  Stop laughing. For this effort, they (not you) get $538,000 to improve quality (an unproven concept), increase patients’ access to information, and ensure more judicious use of health care dollars.  How does that help you again? That’s right, it doesn’t. This dream team reminds me of the quote by Rodney Dangerfield in the movie Easy Money when he saw two bald headed guys and said, “Why don’t you two put your heads together and make an ass outta yourselves?”