SPUR-Net currently has five participants, which collectively care for nearly 800,000 patients annually, including patients from very diverse socioeconomic backgrounds:

Baylor Family Medicine Clinic (http://www.baylorfamilymedicine.org)

The Baylor Family Medicine Clinic is a residency training and faculty practice site located adjacent to the Texas Medical Center in Houston, Texas. Historically, it has been the main academic training center for the Department of Family and Community Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. The clinic is staffed by 10 faculty physicians and 12 family medicine residents. It serves primarily managed care and privately insured patients and has an annual patient visit volume of more than 30,000. More than half of the patients are Caucasian and nearly one fourth are African American. The clinic also features an electronic medical record that was installed in April 1999.

The Harris County Hospital District Clinics (http://www.tmc.edu/hchd)

The Harris County Hospital District (HCHD) is the fourth largest public metropolitan health system in the United States. Its mission is to provide primary care services to all eligible county residents who seek care. In addition to diagnosing and treating health problems, other primary care services available at the HCHD Clinics are health maintenance, health education, preventive care, home care, and other outreach health services. The HCHD Clinics provide services to more than 340,000 people every year. Slightly more than half of the patients are Hispanic and nearly another third are African American.

Healthcare for the Homeless–Houston (http://www.homeless-healthcare.org)

Healthcare for the Homeless–Houston (HHH) is a consortium of community-based agencies, health-care clinics, educational institutions, and public organizations that is the first of its kind in a major United States city. Its mission is to increase the access of Houston’s 10,000 homeless citizens to comprehensive health care while giving them hope and maintaining their dignity. Between 34% and 50% of these people have identified illness or health-related conditions as the primary factor that led to their homelessness, yet most of them do not receive adequate health care. Whatever care they do receive is usually given in a hospital emergency room, the least effective option. One of HHH’s goals is to reduce the number of emergency room visits by providing health care to the homeless through street outreach and shelter clinics.

The Kelsey-Seybold Clinic (http://www.kelsey-seybold.com)

The Kelsey-Seybold Clinic, jointly owned by The Methodist Hospital and St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital, is the largest provider of primary health-care services in the Greater Houston area. Established in 1949, this medical organization currently consists of 23 separate clinics that are staffed by 300 physicians who provide care to about 400,000 patients annually for more than 1.2 million patient visits. The Kelsey-Seybold Clinic has facilities located in specific areas of Houston to capitalize on the diverse demographic composition of the city, which is predominantly Caucasian, Hispanic, and African American.

Memorial Family Practice Residency (http://www.mhhs.org/education/RESfamily.html)

As part of the not-for-profit Memorial Hermann Healthcare System, the Memorial Family Practice Residency program is affiliated with the University of Texas-Houston Medical School and has three family practice centers in Southwest Houston, Sugarland and Fort Bend. The program features a fully integrated, highly regarded health care system that is committed to family practice medicine. It is the only residency program sponsored by Memorial Hermann; the clinics are staffed by 16 faculty members and 40 family medicine residents. Patients seen in the Family Practice Centers represent the range of socioeconomic and ethnic groups typically seen by family physicians. An electronic medical record system was implemented in the Program in 1997.

Please contact Grace M. Kuo, Pharm.D., M.P.H. (gkuo@bcm.tmc.edu), or Stephen J. Spann, M.D., M.B.A. (sspann@bcm.tmc.edu) for additional information.

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