Pilot study to build capacity for family medicine with abbreviated, low-cost training programme with minimal impact on patient care for a cohort of 84 general practitioners caring for Palestinian refugees in Jordan

PURPOSE: Studies document that primary care improves health outcomes and controls costs. In regions of the world where primary care is underdeveloped, building capacity is essential. Most capacity building programmes are expensive and take physicians away from their clinical settings. We describe a programme created, delivered and evaluated from 2013 to 2014 in Jordan. DESIGN: Cohort study. SETTING: Physicians providing primary care in the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees clinics in Jordan. PARTICIPANTS: Eighty-four general practitioners (GPs) were invited to participate and completed the training and evaluation. GPs are physicians who have a license to practice medicine after completing medical school and a 1 year hospital-based rotating internship. Although GPs provide care in the ambulatory setting, their hospital-based education provides little preparation for delivering ambulatory primary care. INTERVENTION/PROGRAMME: This three-stage programme included needs assessment, didactics and on-the-job coaching. First, the learning needs and baseline knowledge of the trainees were assessed and the findings guided curriculum development. During the second stage, 48 hours of didactics covered topics such as communications skills and disease management. The third stage was delivered one on one in the trainee’s clinical setting for a 4 to 6-hour block. The first, middle and final patient interactions were evaluated. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Preknowledge and postknowledge assessments were compared. The clinical checklist, developed for the programme, assessed eight domains of clinical skills such as communication and history taking on a five-point Likert scale during the patient interaction. RESULTS: Preknowledge and postknowledge assessments demonstrated significantly improved scores, 46% to 81% (p<0.0001). Trainee’s clinical checklist scores improved over the assessment intervals. Satisfaction with the training was high. CONCLUSION: This programme is a potential model for building primary care capacity at low cost and with little impact on patient care that addresses both knowledge and clinical skills on the job.