Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email
 |
Checking for direct PDF access through Ovid | |
Excerpt
The Primary Care Summit, which took place on April 6, 1995, at the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan in Detroit, was an opportunity to share perspectives and points of view. The Summit was not a clinical management program. It was designed to consider the issues from the point of view of patients, those who receive and need care, and providers, those who deliver services either as individual professionals or in an organizational setting. Discussions covered various kinds of care. Facilities were identified that are currently necessary and will be essential in the future to deliver the kinds of care needed in this country. Public policy perspectives and options that are important strategies for how to solve this problem were presented. Ideas were shared concerning the ways our colleagues actually are dealing with this issue in the real world. Programs were described as models by individual practitioners who have found a way to solve or take care of a need. Examples of what is actually happening were shared with the participants.
The Primary Care Summit, followed by the publication of this supplement, will help set the stage for future invitational meetings about the issue of primary care for the disabled. The leadership representatives of the sponsoring organizations for the Primary Care Summit will continue to seriously debate further the issue of how the field of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation as a medical specialty and how medical rehabilitation as a health care industry can better address the needs and issues of people with disabling disorders. This is not a cartel that is going to redefine the universe. It is not a conspiracy that is going to cut out other providers from a market place. It is an effort to come together creatively and examine what solutions we can bring to the problem and how we can help solve this serious national dilemma.
The sponsoring organizations of the Primary Care Summit included the Association of Academic Physiatrists, the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine, and the American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. It is a lofty leadership group, and it is the best representation of leadership in the field. Institutions that chose to support the Summit's objectives and sent representatives to the meeting included Baylor College of Medicine, Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation, the National Rehabilitation Hospital, the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, and the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan.
This supplement contains the proceedings from the Primary Care Summit. Most of the original speakers from the Summit have graciously spent time adapting their presentations as articles for publication. What follows are updated versions of the original presentations, which present even more compelling viewpoints and ideas associated with the issue of Primary Care for Persons with Disabilities.
