Medicine in general and family medicine, particularly, is a profession that faces daily challenges that question the logic of continuing to practice the art and science.

The tenets of family medicine are clear and honorable www.aafp.org/online/en/home/aboutus/theaafp/strategicplan.html and the future of family medicine and the new model of family medicine are inspirational www.futurefamilymed.org/index.html . The IAFP mission, policies and strategies are hopeful and encouraging. www.iafp.com/about/mission.htm. The day-to-day practice can leave family physicians wondering how the healthcare system has become a crazy quilt of work-arounds.

At its core, family medicine is exciting due to the trust patients place in family physicians. Your patients come to their medical home, your office, in search of a caring, knowledgeable family physician. Patients look for a family physician who will know what preventive health care services they need, care for their illnesses and injuries, guide them through the confusion of referrals and surgery, and stand by them through their most difficult health care choices.

A sacred trust exists between family physician and patient. The challenges in today’s health care system can break down that trust. The opportunities secure and build that sacred trust.

Here is a look back at 2006 for IAFP. You probably are interested in some of the history, so the topics follow in alphabetical order for your review:

Over 100 IAFP members attended the September 27 rally on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol. In the blaze of a full autumn sun, Senator John Kyl (R-AZ) addressed the crowd of 4000-5000, supporting the AAFP’s Health Care Coverage for All www.aafp.org/online/en/home/policy/policies/h/healthcarecoverageforall.html and encouraging Congress to address the future of primary care and family medicine. Javette Orgain, M.D., IAFP first vice president, Chicago, and Matthew Johnson, M.D., of Park Forest were featured in Chicago Sun Times article about the need for 28 percent more family physicians in 2020 to meet the growing needs of our state. Ellen Brull, M.D., IAFP’s Alternate Delegate to AAFP Congress from Glenview did an interview with WBBM-AM just before the rally began.

About 35-40 IAFP members attended the September 28 breakfast with Illinois’s U.S. Senators Dick Durbin and Barack Obama. Dr. Brull asked the senators about the need for more primary care access and more family physicians in the U.S. See photo at www.iafp.com/legislative/pictures.htm

Rolling down the slippery slope of healthcare reform is All Kids Covered, the first universal access health coverage for children enacted by a state (learn more at www.allkids.com). Announced by Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich in October 2005, IAFP kept a watchful eye ( see article in Family Physician October/November 2006 edition, p. 13, www.iafp.com/newsletter/) on its development over six months (November 2005 through May 2006) through a series of open meetings held by The Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services (DHFS). IAFP members who voluntarily participated in the many meetings included Kathleen Miller, M.D., president from Decatur, Sharon Hull, M.D., Springfield, Rick Leary, M.D., chair of the board from Oak Park, Carolyn Lopez, M.D., Chicago. Vince Keenan, EVP, attended all the meetings and kept a larger number of members involved in review of potential policy and development of quality indicators, including Ellen Brull, M.D., Glenview; Edward Hirsch, M.D., Peoria; Margaret Kirkegaard, M.D., Downers Grove; Tim Vega, M.D., Peoria; and Steven Wilk, M.D., Bolingbrook.

DHFS announced in May that McKesson Health Solutions (McKesson) was the vendor for the disease management project, Your Healthcare Plus, www.yourhealthcareplus.com that would include 168,000 children and disabled adults with chronic illnesses. Beneficiaries receive help managing chronic illnesses such as asthma, coronary artery disease, heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and diabetes.

The disease management project divides the state into 24 geographic regions. In each region, McKesson has a case management team consisting of a case manager, nurse, social worker, behavioral health specialist and pharmacist. Your Healthcare Plus has been operational since July.

DHFS announced in July 2006 Automated Health Systems (AHS) was the vendor for the primary care case management program, Illinois Health Connect, www.illinoishealthconnect.com that provides case management services to 1.2 million Illinoisans covered by Medicaid.

The primary care case management project is a larger undertaking than the disease management project. Its goal is to have 1.2 million Illinoisans covered by Medicaid choose a "medical home." This requires building a primary care provider network throughout Illinois. The project is scheduled to roll out by region (Chicago area, northern and central Illinois, and southern Illinois) during the first half of 2007.

There are many advisory committees for both projects and about 15-20 IAFP members are regular participants. The All Kids steering committee that oversees both projects and to which all the advisory committees report has three IAFP representatives: Kathleen Miller, M.D., IAFP president, Decatur; Sharon Hull, M.D., Springfield, and Carolyn Lopez, M.D., Chicago.

Since more than 82% of IAFP members report accepting Medicaid as payment for patients in their practice, IAFP was involved in an educational effort to inform members about the Illinois Health Connect program through teleconferences, e-mails and faxes.

IAFP was formed in 1947 to provide continuing education to its members. During our 60^th year, the movement of CME from information-based to quality improvement was very evident.

IAFP was awarded a four-year re-accreditation as a national CME provider by the Accreditation Council on CME. IAFP was compliant in all areas and found exemplary in purpose and mission and needs assessment. Special thanks to Sharon Smaga, M.D., of Carbondale, chair of the IAFP CME Committee and Michael Temporal, M.D., of Belleville, IAFP Treasurer, for shepherding the process along.

IAFP discontinued the Medicine for Today sites in 2005 due to the increasing CME accreditation rules that made it nearly impossible for volunteers to administer the 30-hour program. In its place, the CME Committee tested Family Medicine Updates, an 8-10 credit, two-day program in Rockford, Peoria and Chicago. Although attendees rated the program positively on their evaluations, attendance was light, and the Family Medicine Update programs were abandoned.

Flexibility in CME became the name of the game in 2006.

Members participated in a series of pediatric CME teleconferences developed by IAFP and others as part of the Enhanced Developmentally Oriented Primary Care (EDOPC) project, www.edopc.org

• Perinatal Maternal Depression Screening and Referral
• Social/Emotional Development and Screening, Including Autistic Spectrum Disorders

Members also participated in Core Content Review of Family Medicine, www.corecontent.com, a self-study, self-evaluation CME course developed by the Connecticut and Ohio AAFP chapters.

AAFP introduced its new "American Family Physician & Family Practice Management Live" which was held in conjunction with the IAFP annual meeting in July. See article in Family Physician, June/July, pp1, 8-9, www.iafp.com/newsletter/

IAFP now provides new CME self-study guidelines to members online at www.iafp.com/education/:

• The social and emotional development: screening strategies for primary care providers (up to 1 credit)
• Identifying maternal depression at the well child visit (to be released soon)
• Adolescent health: Immunizations and wellness (up to 3 EB-CME credits)

IAFP continued to co-market Pri-Med CME (www.pri-med.com ) courses and conferences in Illinois. IAFP exhibited a total of 13 days in meetings held in St. Louis and the Chicago area.

IAFP co-marketed and exhibited at the Missouri AFP meeting in St. Louis in June.

Family Physician joined the electronic publishing world with the June/July edition. Members were alerted about the change via notice in the April/May edition and with direct mail. The publication lives on www.iafp.com/newsletter and the link is e-mailed to members once the issue is posted.

IAFP’s electronic newsletter continued its bi-weekly distribution to the 80% of members who provide IAFP with their email addresses. A separate bi-weekly electronic publication for volunteer leaders was discontinued in February.

Due to a change in county board presidents in summer 2006 and a looming $500 million deficit, funding medical services for the county public health system face major cuts in the proposed budget. As the County board attempted to strategize, Carolyn Lopez, M.D., chair of the department of family medicine at Stroger Hospital, the county’s largest hospital, was named in November as the interim co-chief of the Health Bureau, which oversees all the county’s health care services. After the November general elections, the new county board president replaced both co-chiefs in December with his own selection. Now, the department of family medicine is under considerable pressure to downsize, as the proposed budget calls for clinics to close and the family residency program to be downsized from 12 slots to 8.

Illinois’s southernmost members meet quarterly to hear interesting talks, share a meal and catch up on local politics, practice and personalities. Every February, May, July and November, about 20-40 members meet. Steven Knight, MD, of Harrisburg, IAFP president-elect, is the organizer and host of these gatherings. Dr. Knight will be inaugurated before his local family physician members at the July 25, 2007 meeting of the Egyptian member group.

Tornadoes and a blizzard hit Springfield in March closing state government and holding down voter turnout in the primary elections. Several incumbents were upset, foreshadowing the big changes that came about in the November general elections.

After the votes were counted on Election Night, Illinois went "dark blue." Democrats added more Senate seats and enjoy a veto-proof majority and added one seat in the House to up its advantage to 66-52. A democrat won the Treasurer’s office to complete a sweep all constitutional offices.

Flu vaccine 2005-2006 continued to be a story as distribution woes dogged the whole flu season. There was no major outbreak. The attempts by the vaccine industry to cure the distribution woes ended up with a major headache on a pre-booking day by the largest manufacturer when demand crashed the website and overwhelmed phone lines. The 2006-2007 flu vaccine distribution started off a bit rocky but settled down as about 50% more flu vaccine doses were available in fall 2006 as compared to fall 2005.

In Illinois, a mercury-free vaccine act was passed in 2005. However, the Illinois Department of Public Health issued emergency exemption for the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 flu seasons due to inadequate amounts of mercury free vaccines available to meet public’s needs.

Kathleen Miller, M.D. was inaugurated as IAFP president by Thomas Weida, M.D., AAFP Speaker from Pennsylvania. Dr. Miller told of her journey to family medicine as a second career.

The IAFP board adopted in October a new strategic plan, www.iafp.com/about/mission.htm, the first in several years, to serve as a framework for IAFP leadership, staff and members. The board has begun to use the techniques of Knowledge Based Decision Making and Appreciative Inquiry in order to make sure that adequate information and well-discussed options are the basis for board decisions.

Dr. Miller introduced a new volunteer structure for working on Academy business. There are fewer standing committees with ongoing responsibilities (such as CME, Finance, Government Relations, Quality and Safety in Practice, and Public Health), more task forces with very specific duties (such as AAFP Resolutions, Annual Meeting, Fall Forum, Leadership Development, Membership and Member Services, and Public Relations) and interest groups driven by member interest (such as Family Medicine Educators, Rural Health and Urban Health).

Family physicians aren’t the only ones fed up with the problems of the current health care system. In 2006 17.2% of Illinoisans remain without healthcare insurance, (www.gileadcenter.org/). The Adequate Health Care Task Force, created by the HCJA held public hearings in every Illinois Congressional district.

The Task Force submitted its report to the Illinois General Assembly in January 2007. Universal access to health care in Illinois promises to be a top tier topic for the Illinois General Assembly in 2007.

Some good news opened the new year of 2006, when Medicaid announced that it would increase the payments for pediatric care, as the result of a settlement reached in 2005 against the state’s Medicaid program. The payment increases were implemented to help more children obtain the series of services mandated by the U.S. government for Early, Periodic Screening Diagnosis and Treatment. (EPSDT). See the article in Family Physician, February/March 2006, p.5, www.iafp.com/newsletter/

Continuing frustrations with Medicaid payment delays were voiced by IAFP members Matthew Johnson, M.D., of Park Forest and Samantha Sattler, M.D., in an April Chicago Tribune article. Dr. Sattler eventually moved to St. Charles, Missouri due to financial strain caused by the unpaid Medicaid bills.

Funding for Medicaid for fiscal year 2007, which ends June 30, included funding to assure expedited payments for all medical services to children, to stabilize the payment cycle at 78 days with a maximum of 86 days.

MEDICAID MONEY MATTERS: Payment cycles for all children’s medical services are on an expedited 30-day payment schedule as of January 1, 2006. Adult medical services were put on an expedited 60-day payment cycle in August. The new Illinois Health Connect, primary care case management program, will pay a monthly care management fee of $2-$4 per patient.

Illinois continued to try to balance the fiscal books with an innovative Hospital Assessment Tax, to bring $525 million more in federal funding to the Illinois Medicaid program. The Illinois Hospital Assessment Tax, along with other states’ creative financing attempts, increasing come under the scrutiny of CMS.

The Illinois Medical Practice Act was sun-setting in 2006 and IAFP and others hoped for another 10 year renewal. The General Assembly voted to extend it for two more years, until December 31, 2008.

For senior patients, Medicare Part D was the big news on the national healthcare landscape during the first half of 2006. For physicians, the annual advocacy struggle to eliminate planned Medicare payment reductions continued on. In early 2006, a scheduled 4.4% reduction was eliminated. In late 2006, a scheduled 5.1% reduction for 2007 was eliminated. Unfortunately, physicians are stuck on this merry go round until Congress eliminates the SGR formula and goes to a system where Medicare payments are determined by the costs of providing that care.

On the good news side, Tom Cornwell, MD, from Wheaton, was on the national panel that recommended new codes and payments for patients in assisted living facilities which CMS (Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services) approved and enacted.

Even better news was the announcement that Medicare will pay family physicians more for the time they spend talking with their patients about their health care and will pay for a broader range of preventive services. Family physicians should see a net increase in their Medicare payments of about 6% in 2007. Thanks to AAFP for shepherding this change.

Looming on the horizon for 2007 is NPI, the National Provider Identifier. Any health care provider that bills Medicare for services will need the 10-digit number by May 23, 2007. http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalProvIdentStand/

Medicare started to move towards "pay for performance" with its introduction of the Physicians Voluntary Reporting Program (PVRP). The deal made on eliminating the 5.1% payment reduction for 2007 included the incentive for 1.5% increased pay for using the PVRP form to report on certain quality of care measures. http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=41609

Members in the news

Hugo Avalos, M.D., retired, of Morris; John Beck, Sr., M.D., retired, of Chester; Christine Lucas, M.D., Anna; Therese Lucietto-Sieradski, M.D., of Rochelle and nominated by IAFP; Secundino Rubio, M.D., of Salem; Thomas Staton, M.D. of Metropolis; and Shorky Tawfik, M.D., of Lena were honored as Rural Physicians of Excellence by Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn at an October Illinois Rural Health Association reception in Springfield. www.ilruralhealth.org

Alfred J. Faber, M.D., formerly of Des Plaines, died August 28. Dr. Faber was the IAFP president 1974-75

Four family physicians (Arvind Goyal, M.D. of Rolling Meadows featured regarding his care for multiple generations and his passion for preventive medicine, Lucy Canady, M.D. of Lockport, Margaret Hannon, M.D., of Western Springs and Steven Rothschild, M.D., of Chicago also listed) make "Top Doctors" issue of Chicago magazine, Not long ago, family medicine was not even a category.

Christopher Jonas, D.O., resident at Scott AFB was a recipient of the 2006 Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Excellence in Graduate Medical Education.

Carolyn Lopez, M.D., of Chicago was elected the president of the Institute of Medicine of Chicago, www.iomc.org

Members and government

Ellen Brull, M.D., of Glenview, an IAFP past president and current alternate delegate to AAFP, and Martin Lipsky, M.D., dean of the UIC Rockford Medical School serve on the Illinois Electronic Health Records Task Force. The E H R Task Force made its report to the Illinois General Assembly in December 2006. http://www.idph.state.il.us/ehrtf/ehrtf_home.htm

Ellen Brull, M.D., Steven Knight, M.D., of Harrisburg; Jerry Kruse, M.D., SIU School of Medicine chair of the department of family and community medicine, Carolyn Lopez, M.D., chair of department of family medicine at Stroger Hospital, Chicago, IAFP past president and AAFP past speaker, Anette Mnabhi, D.O., then-IAFP treasurer and Alvia Siddiqi, M.D., IAFP resident member from MacNeal FM Residency, Berwyn, all represented Illinois at the AAFP Family Medicine Congressional Conference in May. They and many other AAFP members visited with Senators and Representatives to advocate AAFP issues. http://www.aafp.org/online/en/home/cme/aafpcourses/conferences/fmcc.html

Kelly Carroll, M.D., of Silvis, an IAFP past president and current delegate to AAFP, represents IAFP on the Partnership for Cancer Prevention and Control.

Andy DeFuniak, M.D., of Chicago, and Arvind Goyal, MD, of Rolling Meadows, both on IAFP’s Public Health Committee represented IAFP at Governor Blagojevich’s Pandemic Flu Summit in March.

Mark Grant, M.D., M.P.H., Chicago, was appointed to the Medicare Coverage Advisory Committee for 2007. Dr. Grant is a senior scientist at the Technology Evaluation Center at BlueCross BlueShield Association.

Margaret Kirkegaard, M.D., of Downers Grove, was named medical director of the Illinois Medicaid Primary Care Case Management program through Automated Health Systems. Dr. Kirkegaard started in September.

Fredric Leary, M.D., of Oak Park, was named Medical Director of the Illinois Medicaid Disease Management program through McKesson Health Solutions. Dr. Leary started in August.

Sylvia Mahone, M.D., of Hazel Crest, serves as IAFP’s representative to the Illinois Stroke Task Force.

Tim Vega, M.D., of Peoria, an IAFP past president and current delegate to AAFP joins Javette Orgain, M.D., now IAFP first vice president, Jane Jackman, M.D., of Springfield; and Jerry Kruse, M.D., of Quincy; on the Illinois State Board of Health. Dr. Orgain is the chair of the state board. http://www.idph.state.il.us/about/board.htm

Steven Wilk, M.D., of Bolingbrook, and chair of the IAFP Government Relations Committee, accepted the AAFP Leadership in State Government Award at the AAFP State Legislative Conference in November. IAFP was recognized for its advocacy for family physicians in Medicaid claims payment cycles. www.aafp.org/online/en/home/publications/news/news-now/inside-aafp/20061128advocacyawards.html

Member services

A few new member services were introduced in 2006. IAFP was the first Illinois medical group to join the Healthcare Associates Credit Union www.hacu.org . HACU offers traditional banking services, as well as many practice management financial opportunities.

Members looking for positions or looking to hire family physicians have been using FP Jobs Online, www.iafp.com/JobListings/ to post their CVs or post their open positions. FP Jobs Online is a national placement service with listings of family practice candidates and opportunities all around the United States.

With the increased use of Health Care Savings Accounts (HSA) among patients, IAFP and other state chapters offered member the opportunity to accept American Express ® Card payment in their offices.

One Illinois practice was chosen to participate in the AAFP’s TransforMED National Demonstration Project http://www.transformed.com/ . The Erie Family Health Center, Chicago, was picked to be one of 18 practices in the experimental group that would be given all the materials, but not provided with the ongoing consulting. Unfortunately for family medicine, an administrative change at Erie forced many family physicians to leave Erie Family Health Center just as the project was starting. Lee Sacks, M.D., IAFP past president, serves on the advisory board of TransforMED.

IAFP was one of three states chosen to host the AAFP Practice Enhancement Forum. http://www.aafp.org/online/en/home/practicemgt/quality/cme/pef.html Thirteen IAFP member practices attended the two-day event in October and are now conducting quality improvement modules in their practices. Each practice has an IAFP member mentor who monitors progress and serves as an advisor. Six of the practices will be followed and featured in Family Physician in 2007.

The words, "Pay for Performance or P4P," usually bring a chill to discussions among family physicians. One group, Advocate Health Partners in the Chicago area, reported on their three-year experience with P4P. Stephen Sproul, M.D., of Mount Prospect, described how the P4P system was designed by the physicians, not the health plans, in an article in Family Physician, August/September, p. 10, www.iafp.com/newsletter/

The Illinois Foundation for Quality Health Care, www.ifqhc.org the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization in Illinois, signed up over 225 Illinois primary care practices to provide assistance in adopting and optimizing use of electronic health records. The project, called DOQ-IT (Doctors’ Office Quality Information Technology), continues to help the 225 practices it recruited.

IAFP complemented the DOQ-IT project, by holding its third E H R workshop in Peoria in February. Christopher Hughes, M.D., of Eureka, John Kreckman, M.D., of Mendota; and Ryan Walsh, M.D., of Farmington/Canton taught their IAFP colleagues about their E H R adoption experiences. Lou Spikol, M.D., consultant to AAFP’s Center for Health Information Technology was the moderator for the program and authored an article on shopping for an E H R in the Family Physician December 2006/January 2007 issue, pp.15-16, www.iafp.com/newsletter/ Separately, Beth Pector, M.D., Naperville and Savitha Susarla, M.D., of Elgin, described their practices purchase and implementation of electronic health records in the Family Physician October/November edition, pp. 18-20, www.iafp.com/newsletter/ . Similarly Kristin A. Mock, M.D., of Sycamore, described her medical group’s experience in the Family Physician August/September issue, p. 4, www.iafp.com/newsletter/

IAFP members started a pilot project, Practice Enhancement for Improving Quality (PEIQ), to use a web-based patient registry to conduct quality improvement projects and report them to health plans. Starting in September, five groups of primary care providers in Illinois were identified as target groups for using the web based patient registry. The groups in Chicago, Metro East, and small practices throughout Illinois will use the patient registry to track patients with diabetes and asthma and also to keep track of childhood, adolescent and adult immunizations. For more information on how to use patient registries, see article in Family Physician, December 2006/January 2007 issue, pp. 16-18, www.iafp.com/newsletter/

PEIQ is a quality improvement and research collaborative effort by IAFP, its Foundation, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois (BCBSI) to assist Illinois primary care physicians in efficiently and cost-effectively tracking patient and populations results over time using the Bridging Care Planner (BCP), an easy, online patient registry. GSK will license the BCP at no cost in exchange for a Limited Data Set as defined by HIPAA guidelines to be used by GSK to create an observational database for GSK research activities.

PEIQ participants can earn CME credit for quality improvement and meet board re-certification requirements. In addition, physicians may be able to report health plan QI program data without time-consuming chart audits. BCBSI will recognize PEIQ as a quality improvement initiative.

The August 2005 enactment of caps on awards for medical malpractice awards calmed the turbulent medical marketplace in 2006. In March, the state Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, ordered ISMIE (Illinois State Medical Insurance Exchange, www.ismie.com ), Illinois’ largest medical malpractice insurance company, to change how it reports its rate structure and to reduce rates to insureds. http://www.idfpr.com/NEWSRLS/03142006ISMIEDecision.asp ISMIE lowered rates by 5.2% in 2006 and for the first time in many years, opened up its rolls to new policies in 2007. http://chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=23484&rel=1

Match results in 2006 showed continued signs of a recovery. Illinois’ 27 FM residency programs filled 86.7% through the Match, a slight increase over 2005. On the student side, of the 1120 Illinois medical school graduates 7.8% chose family medicine up over a percentage point from 2005.

To continue to foster student interest in family medicine, the Foundation hosted its fifth annual "Preparing for Residency" program where family medicine residency faculty provide vital guidance to mostly third year medical students about how to manage the Match. Students were the judges of the annual Tar Wars state poster contest and chose the poster of Dylan Bridges of Jerseyville to represent Illinois in the national Tar Wars poster contest.

AAFP’s National Conference included representatives from Illinois: Kate Rowland, MD, from Illinois Masonic FM Residency, and Cinthia Elkins, fourth year medical student from UI Urbana Medical Scholars program. Both Dr. Rowland and Ms. Elkins received appointments to serve on the AAFP Commission on Science for 2007.

IAFP’s largest meeting of the year continues to be the Fall Family Medicine Forum and Residency Fair. Over 40 residency programs exhibited and provided 12 workshops to more than 125 medical students from seven medical schools.

Retail health clinics entered into the St. Louis marketplace in late April as a surprise to Missouri and Illinois family physicians. The AAFP has excellent guidelines to promote the family physician point of view on retail health clinics, http://www.aafp.org/online/en/home/policy/policies/r/retailhealthclinics.html
Retail health clinics opened in Carbondale and Mount Vernon in May and in the Chicago area in November. IAFP kept members aware of developments and offered its viewpoint (August/September 2006, p. 6 and December 2006/January 2007 p. 19, www.iafp.com/newsletter/)

Illinois family physicians played important roles as communities around the state debated the merits of going smoke free. A new state law passed in 2005 allowed Illinois communities to decide on their own if they wished to become smoke free. Previous law had limited the ability to only a few grandfathered Illinois communities. Smoke free advocates arguments were considerably elevated when outgoing U.S. Surgeon General Carmona released his report on the catastrophic effects of second hand smoke http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/secondhandsmoke/ . Chicago kicked off 2006 with the start of its phased-in smoke free ordinance in January. By year’s end, 42 communities had already passed smoke free ordinances and 47 more were working towards their own ordinances. http://www.smokefreeillinois.org/communities.cfm

Continued advocacy successfully made all Illinois college dormitories smoke free with enactment of SB 2465 (Senators Cullerton, Schoenberg and Collins). Additionally counties were allowed to enact clean indoor air laws for unincorporated areas with enactment of SB 2400 (Senator Cullerton)

With the momentum generated by the many communities that have adopted smoke free ordinances, the Illinois General Assembly began to contemplate a state-wide smoke free law. IAFP joined others in testifying for a statewide law at a hearing of the Senate Executive Committee in October and at the announcement of SB 500 on January 11. IAFP President Kathleen Miller spoke at the press conference http://www.iafp.com/pdfs/IAFP%20%20letterhead%20statement.pdf.

IAFP will go smoke-free at all its meetings when the IAFP All Member Assembly passed a resolution at the October meeting that all future IAFP meetings not already under contract be held only at smoke-free locations. www.iafp.com/whatsnew/smokefree.htm

Despite all the activity on smoke free communities, the Illinois legislature continues to provide little funding (around $11 million of the state’s annual $325 million from the tobacco settlement).

But family medicine knows that advocating for tobacco prevention can be fun! The Foundation held its second annual Tar Wars Night at the Chicago White Sox game, July 6. This fundraiser for Tar Wars brought 267 members and friends together for a thrilling White Sox win.

IAFP Foundation continues to sponsor Tar Wars http://www.iafp.com/tarwars/, and an annual poster contest. Ginger Cotter, medical student at Chicago Medical School was honored with a national Tar Wars Star Award for her outstanding efforts in starting and coordinating the Tar Wars group of presenters at her medical school.

IAFP members called on their state Senators during the fifth annual "Spring into Action" meeting in March. CME programs included emergency and pandemic preparedness, reproductive health care policy and Medicare Part D. Family physicians advocated for restored funding for the Foundation’s Summer Externship program and voiced frustrations on the "low and slow" Medicaid payments. IAFP’s new brochure, "Family Medicine in Illinois: Still Caring for ALL of You," http://www.iafp.com/legislative/index.htm was the colorful showcase of family medicine given to state senators.

One of members’ favorite programs is the Foundation’s summer externship program www.iafp.com/Foundation/externship.htm. It places rising second year medical students in rural and urban underserved areas with family physicians. With over 600 alumni since inception in 1990, the summer externship program has a wonderful success metric, 32% of the alumni go into family medicine, as compared to 7-13% of all Illinois medical students. In January, IAFP was notified that state funding would be cut. A call went out to preceptors, alumni and others to rescue the program and $10,800 was raised.

In 2006, 27 medical students were selected to participate in early April. In May, near the end of the state fiscal year, a grant from the Illinois Department of Public Health was received to help support the summer externship program. It was too late to add more students but did provide support to fully fund those 27 students, many of whom had volunteered to do the program without a stipend.

IAFP hosted a meeting of the state chapters in the northeast quadrant of the United States, affectionately known as "Ten State Conference." The conference planning committee put on a great show, highlighting IAFP’s stellar government relations, public relations and public health activities. A highlight of the weekend was Ben Brewer, MD, of Forrest, who is also a bi-weekly columnist for the Wall St. Journal Online. In his homespun way, Dr. Brewer related the stories that make family physicians eager to practice every day (the rewards of caring for families and the ability his relationships with patients and medical knowledge combine to solve medical mysteries on any given day) balanced with the exigencies of balancing patients needs with a sometimes intractable healthcare system (the struggle to get referrals for patients on Medicaid who need to see sub-specialists).

As the IAFP switched its CME focus from CME presentations to Quality Improvement modules from 2005 through 2006, staff was reduced, and there was a squeeze on our finances. Through the dedication and commitment of the following IAFP staffers, IAFP turned the corner and is on firmer ground once again. 2007 looks like a year when IAFP can continue to provide extraordinary service to its wonderful members.

Jennifer O’Leary, deputy executive vice president, 15 years
Christine Emerson, vice president of communications, 15 years
Crishelle O’Rourke, meetings manager and director of summer externship, 12 years
Gordana Krkic, CAE, vice president of government relations, 10 years
Ginnie Flynn, director of public relations, 8 years
Diana Garcia, office manager, 7 years
Kate Valentine, education manager, 4 years