According to Rosalie Phillips, Executive Director of THCI, Managed Care Institute, this year’s participants include physician-educators from a broad range of settings – from Carney Hospital and the Greater Lawrence Family Health Center to the Mayo Clinic, UCLA School of Medicine, and University of Pennsylvania Health System. "This is a unique opportunity," says Phillips, "one where physicians from diverse areas and practice settings can come together to develop a better understanding of the essential principles and practices of today’s managed care environment. They can then take those fundamentals back to their local managed care market and adapt them for training new physicians who themselves will soon be entering practice."

Among other things, participants will learn how to train fellow faculty and residents on how to use the PRS program, a uniquely designed self-guided, interactive learning experience on CD-ROM. The program takes residents into a virtual practice where they meet a variety of challenging patients and situations. The first patient encountered is a man who arrives at the ER in a diabetic coma. Residents also hear from the attending physician, ICU nurse and rehab nurse, who each express opinions about the patient’s condition and general situation. Along the away, residents meet a healthy patient who insists on having a colonoscopy, as well as a patient who needs an emergency appendectomy.

Medical educators can use the case presentations on the computer-based program to help residents learn how to:

• Transition to a managed care practice setting;
• Manage financial risk for a patient population within constrained resources;
• Use quality improvement initiatives to optimize health outcomes; and
• Provide high quality care for patients within the context of the continuum of care and coordinated delivery systems

"Managed care training is not currently an integral part of medical training, and as a result, many health care practitioners learn how to manage care for their patients through trial and error. THCI is helping to change that," said Philip Boulter, MD, Medical Director for THCI and Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for Tufts Health Plan in Waltham. "Through this annual conference and its many other programs, THCI is teaching physicians and other health care practitioners the skills necessary to practice successfully and effectively in a high quality, cost-effective managed health care system." This year’s annual conference is supported in part by a grant from Zeneca Pharmaceuticals.

Tufts Health Care Institute is an independent, not-for-profit, educational organization established in 1995 as collaboration between Tufts University School of Medicine and Tufts Health Plan to provide managed care education to a full range of health care professionals. THCI has developed a variety of customized seminars, course materials, and symposia on timely topics, tapping talented faculty from a broad range of health care institutions. In addition, THCI has provided a neutral forum for discussion among stakeholders with differing perspectives of the current and future challenges of managed care. THCI sponsors CME-accredited conferences for practicing professionals on such issues as capitation, ethical issues in managed care, case management, and measuring quality and patient satisfaction.