PCPCC Executive Director Marcia Nielsen, Ph.D., MPH, to Speak at Association of Departments of Family Medicine Meeting

Veteran of academic, government and non-profit sectors will discuss population health on Thursday and educational transformation on Friday

WASHINGTON, Feb. 16, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Health care delivery systems can and must enhance population health. This is one of the messages Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative (PCPCC) Executive Director Marcia Nielsen, Ph.D., MPH, will deliver at this month's Association of Departments of Family Medicine Winter Meeting.

The meeting will be held Feb. 22-25 at the Rancho Las Palmas Resort and Spa in Rancho Mirage, Calif. The theme: Opportunities for Leadership During Uncertain and Austere Times.

Nielsen will present during two sessions. Thursday, Feb. 23, she will be part of a panel entitled "How Does a Delivery System Improve the Health of a Population?" The next day, she will participate in a panel on educational transformation, entitled "The Parallel Process of Educational and Practice Transformation."

As the executive director of PCPCC, a coalition of stakeholders committed to the advancement of the patient centered medical home, Nielsen is exceptionally qualified to speak on both issues. She came to the PCPCC from the University of Kansas Medical Center, where she served as associate dean for health policy and as a faculty member. She previously served as executive director of the Kansas Health Policy Authority, the leading health agency in the state.

"Primary care transformation is the foundation for larger transformation we need to see across the entire health care delivery system, and population health is at the heart of such change. This is something departments of family medicine recognized long before Affordable Care Act. They helped lay the foundation, and they are essential to the success of health care reform efforts," she said.

"For all the advances we have made in primary care, we are still learning; true transformation is possible only if we continue to advocate for team-based care and train health professionals in interprofessional settings. That's why the role of the ADFM is so crucial. I am delighted to participate in this meeting, and I hope to continue working with academic medical centers to advocate for health system transformation, built on a strong foundation of primary care."

For more information and a compete agenda, go to http://www.adfammed.org/meeting_information.htm.

About the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative

The Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative is a coalition of more than 1,000 major employers, consumer groups, organizations representing primary care physicians, and other stakeholders who have joined to advance the patient centered medical home. The Collaborative believes that, if implemented, the patient centered medical home will improve the health of patients and the health care delivery system. For more information on the patient centered medical home and a complete list of the PCPCC members, please visit http://www.pcpcc.net/.

SOURCE The Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative