PORT ANGELES — The primary care physicians at Family Medicine of Port Angeles are treating a smarter class of patients these days.
Its patients are seeing smarter doctors, too.
The practice hasn’t changed its providers or its customers.
It has, however, changed how they share information, and it has greatly increased the information they share.
The changes have been dramatic enough for Family Medicine to attract the attention of Premera Blue Cross, which recently named the practice a Healthcare Quality Leader, one of only 15 throughout Washington.
The award followed one it won this summer from the Practice Partner Research Network as a Best Practice and last year’s citation for clinician performance from Regence Blue Shield.
“Big things have been happening in medicine for the past few years,” Dr. Stan Garlick, founder of the practice, said Wednesday.
And nowhere have changes been bigger than in primary care — family practice — where national medical experts concluded patients were under-served.
“We took that to heart,” said Dr. Michael Maxwell, another of Family Medicine’s six physicians, “and decided to invest the time and resources into redesigning what we do.”
Med on the Web
Computers and the Internet have played major roles in the metamorphosis.
Electronic record keeping is key, and so is learning to use computer programs to their full potential to list, interpret and display information.
Helping his colleagues climb the information technology learning curve has been Dr. Bill Hennessey’s knack.
But IT isn’t just for the doctors.
Patients can access information to answer all kinds of questions about medicine, from preventive care to urgent treatment.
“You can’t treat someone without giving the patient information,” Garlick said.
