Resident time in continuity practice.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Family medicine residents are required to maintain a continuity practice in an approved family medicine center (FMC) and achieve minimum targets for patient encounters. In the past, minimum periods of time in the FMC were defined in the program requirements, but these have now been replaced with target numbers of patient encounters. As residency programs come under increasing pressure to address service needs on patient care services, some program directors face requests by hospital administration to benchmark their requirements for resident schedules in the FMC against national standards. Since no such standards presently exist, the authors decided to determine the average frequency with which residents are currently scheduled in their FMC continuity practices in order to meet accreditation requirements. METHODS Using the data set from the 2011 American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) annual residency census and residency directory questionnaire, the frequency of reported resident scheduling in the FMC continuity practice was extracted. Although the census itself achieves a 100% response rate, not all programs respond to all of the residency directory questions. In this case, for reported time in the FMC, an 84% (380 out of 450 programs) response rate was achieved. RESULTS Family medicine residency programs currently schedule residents in their FMC continuity practice substantially more often than previously required. CONCLUSIONS To meet current accreditation requirements, family medicine residency programs schedule residents in their FMC continuity practices more than previously required minimums.