Congressional Caucus Speakers To Discuss Mental Illness, Access To Care, Rural Health Issues

Main Category: Mental Health
Also Included In: Conferences
Article Date: 14 Jan 2008 - 2:00 PDT

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Will people with mental illness gain equal access to the health care system in 2008? Will elderly and disabled patients continue to have unfettered access to medical care? Will physicians and their colleagues in hospitals, pharmacies and peer offices be able to communicate via electronic health records next year?

Those and other questions remain on the table when Congress returns to Washington. Whether and how the issues will be resolved is the focus of a forum, "What Will the Congressional Health Caucuses be Addressing in 2008?" sponsored by the Robert Graham Center.

The forum will feature the

- Rural Health Care Coalition, with Leanie Rhinehart, from the office of Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-ND;

- House 21st Century Health Care Caucus, with Rachael Bornstein, from the office of Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-RI; and

- Congressional Mental Health Caucus, with Elizabeth Ziegler from the office of Rep. Grace Napolitano, D-Calif.

The forum is open to the news media.

What: "What Will the Congressional Health Caucuses be Addressing in 2008?"

When: Tuesday, Jan. 29
8 a.m. to 9 a.m.

Where: Cosmos Club
2121 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC

About the Robert Graham Center

The Robert Graham Center conducts research and analysis that brings a family medicine perspective to health policy deliberations in Washington. Founded in 1999, the Center is an independent research unit working under the personnel and financial policies of the American Academy of Family Physicians. For more information, please visit http://www.graham-center.org .

About the American Academy of Family Physicians

Founded in 1947, the AAFP represents nearly 94,000 physicians and medical students nationwide. It is the only medical society devoted solely to primary care.

Nearly one in four of all office visits are made to general and family physicians. That is 207 million office visits each year - 62 million more than to any other medical specialty. Today, family physicians provide the majority of care for America's underserved and rural populations.

In the increasingly fragmented world of health care where many medical specialties limit their practice to a particular organ, disease, age or sex, family physicians are dedicated to treating the whole person across the full spectrum of ages. Family medicine's cornerstone is an ongoing, personal patient-physician relationship focused on integrated care.

American Academy of Family Physicians