UCSF-Fresno selected for national professional development program

The UCSF-Fresno Medical Education Program has been chosen as one of nine medical institutions for a program to help build faculty teams that will work together to improve patient care.

The Fresno faculty will be participate in Professionals Accelerating Clinical and Education Redesign (PACER), a new, national professional development program. PACER is a three-year program that is funded by the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation with matching funding from the Boards of Family Medicine, Internal Medicine and Pediatrics and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. The project is implemented and evaluated by educational researchers in the department of family medicine at Oregon Health & Science University.

The program will help build a “more seamless system” of care for patients at the Deran Koligian Ambulatory Care Center at Community Regional Medical Center, said Dr. Serena Yang, associate clinical professor of pediatrics and leader of the UCSF-Fresno PACER program.

Internal medicine, family medicine and pediatrics will be the core, where patients first access medical care, Yang said. But pharmacists, nurses, mental health therapists and sub-specialists will work as a team with the primary care practitioners. The team also will take advantage of electronic medical records to communicate, Yang said. And the grant will allow for faculty members to educate future doctors of the importance of the team approach to medicine, she said.

This story was originally published January 13, 2016 at 1:14 PM with the headline "UCSF-Fresno selected for national professional development program."