Home visits in family medicine residency: evaluation of 8 years of a training program.

PROBLEM ADDRESSED: There has been a decline in family physicians providing home visits to housebound patients.

OBJECTIVE OF PROGRAM: To increase family medicine residents' exposure to home visits; their comfort and skills in providing home visits; and their willingness to provide home visits after graduation.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: Between 2000 and 2010, each family practice resident at St Joseph's Health Centre Family Medicine Teaching Unit in Toronto, Ont, was assigned at least 1 housebound patient to care for longitudinally over 2 years; the rationale for this was to increase the sense of "ownership" and responsibility among residents for their assigned homebound patients. Starting in 2003, until the program's conclusion in 2010, residents were asked to fill out surveys before and after the program to assess their comfort with and confidence in providing home visits, as well as their satisfaction with the program. Survey responses were analyzed for changes over the course of residency training. A total of 85 residents completed the home visit teaching program between 2003 and 2010 inclusive.

CONCLUSION: While residents' willingness to provide home visits did not increase over the course of residency, their confidence in making housecalls did increase. There was also a trend toward increased confidence among residents in working with community agencies. Thus, having home visit patients be a part of resident practices might play an important role in increasing the likelihood that future family physicians will continue to care for their patients when those patients are no longer ambulatory.