The Project is set up as a set of educational programs sponsored by five primary care departments – Geriatrics, Pediatrics, Obstetrics/Gynecology, Family Medicine, and Internal/General Medicine. The Project Core is made up of leadership from each department, as well as the Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education and a representative from M-Care, the Project's managed care partner. The Core provides direction and coordination for the Project's curriculum development, its implementation, and its evaluation.

The Project Core has made good progress during the past two months, continuing its focus on creating the documentation of the work that has been done for this grant and coordinating its implementation through the use of templates and timelines. Core leadership developed a set of "Guidelines for Creating Curriculum-based Learning Objectives," which includes templates that will provide a consistent description of the curricula, rotations, & syllabi produced by the departments in the Project. These were reviewed and discussed at the June Core meeting after which they were distributed to all departments in both print & electronic formats,

Project leadership attended the June 4 quarterly meeting in Lansing, accompanied by Scott Merwin, the Medicaid Coordinator for M-Care and a Project Core member.

In early June the Project's videotape, "Caring in the Community," began to be shown on the campus-wide cable system here at the University of Michigan and has been shown on the City of Ann Arbor's community access cable channel as well. It continues to be shown daily on the U of M Hospital cable system.

Building on agreements made with the Executive Director of M-Care last May, a meeting with representatives of M-Care was held on July 6. The topic was adapting existing physician profiles for use as teaching tools for residents. After extensive discussion, and many follow-up phone calls and e-mail, a way was found to produce profiles that would provide useful information while still maintaining proper confidentiality. Another outcome of the July 6 meeting was a list and schedule of M-Care's review committee meetings, to which resident learners are invited to attend.

On July 14 legislative aides visiting the U of M medical campus were given a Power Point presentation about the Project and received copies of the "Caring in the Community" video tape.

During the third week in July the Project's budget for Year 3, covering October 1999, through June 2000, was formatted and sent to the Department of Community Health.

On July 27, Project leadership met with Dr. Hope Haefner, the newly appointed Core contact person for the Obstetrics/Gynecology department, and other representatives of the new OB/Gyne steering committee to help organize their participation in the Project.

A total of 196 Attitude Surveys have been administered by the Project to date. Totals by department are included below.

Geriatrics: 11 Attitude Surveys have been taken in this department. Rotations in this department continued as scheduled. A Core-developed template for documenting these rotations was completed, linking competencies listed in the COGME Resource Paper to learning objectives set forth in the rotations.

Pediatrics: 67 Attitude Surveys have been taken in this department. The four Pediatrics rotations continued as scheduled. In July the rotations began to include a newly developed "Education Seminar for the Practicing Pediatrician," which includes managed care issues. To measure the effectiveness of the new seminar, an internally developed seminar evaluation survey was administered on July 27.

Family Medicine: 24 Attitude Surveys have been taken in this department. The master Rotations Schedule has been developed and is being implemented. By the end of July the Administrative Assistant job had been posted and applications were in hand.

Obstetrics/Gynecology: The department's new steering committee first met in late July and began planing the OB/Gyne curriculum and rotation. As yet no Attitude Surveys have been administered to OB/Gyne residents.

Internal/General Medicine: 94 Attitude Surveys have been taken in this department. Rotations have continued as scheduled.

Personnel concerns continued to cause the most difficulty in the unfolding of this Project.

The department of Family Medicine has made good progress without dedicated administrative support, yet this lack has hampered creation of the documentation required for reporting its activities. Additionally, the time and effort taken for hiring support staff detracts from direct participation in the Project. The personnel changes in the Obstetrics/Gynecology department have necessitated a new start in the development of a Medicaid managed care curriculum for OB/Gyne. Much of what has been developed Project-wide can be used directly or as a model, yet there remains much to be done.

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