Research & Quality

Family Medicine

In keeping with the Community Health and Family Medicine mission to “foster research and discovery in primary care,” we promote scholarly activity; research; discovery in health behavior, clinical practice research, community health, rural health, medical ethics, health law and policy, and other related fields; and we disseminate the information generated as a result of these activities.


Long–term Objectives

  • Prioritize local community health, evaluating needs, and developing systematic interventions in primary care settings
  • Develop a research strategy for studying the effectiveness of social work intervention with primary care patients
  • Emphasize research training at the Residency Program, bringing residents into established research projects and giving them opportunities to practice research and publishing
  • Explore how primary care research fills a vital role in the development of an institutional clinical translational research model

Facts and Accomplishments

  • Our research team has an IRB-approved generic informed consent database which allows us to access a pool of previously consented study participants to speed up the patient identification and recruitment process.
  • The Department and residency program have joined with 30 other primary care medical and research sites throughout the country to form the National Interdisciplinary Primary Care Practice-Based Research Network (PBRN).

Quality Improvement 

The Department of Community Health and Family Medicine is committed to continuous improvement of the care provided to our patients and the community and the education of all our learners. The quality improvement team is involved in coordinating and conducting quality improvement that focus on health services research and medical education, generating reports to monitor the progress of ongoing projects.

We are currently focusing on reducing high cost/low value processes, improving patient satisfaction, reducing hospital readmission, and improving meaningful use of the electronic medical record system. In addition, we regularly distribute information regarding quality measurement tools and compliance with quality indicators and the status of current quality improvement projects to department personnel.


Research Facilities 

The Department of Community Health and Family Medicine is comprised of offices including Main Street, Haile Plantation, Springhill, Eastside, Jonesville and Old Town. In addition, the Department also oversees all clinical activities at the University of Florida, Student Health Care Center. Our research team has the facilities, recruitment accessibility and faculty experience that is ideal for conducting a wide variety of clinical research.

The research division within the Department has been in existence since 1986. We are competent in a wide variety of clinical trials and focus our efforts in studies in phase III and IV. The demographic and pathophysiologic diversity of our patients gives us a database rich with potential subjects.

Family Medicine Residency Program was established in 1971 by the Department of Community Health and Family Medicine at the University of Florida to promote Family Medicine. As part of the University of Florida’s medical residency program, physicians-in-training participate in patient care under the supervision of faculty physicians.

The University of Florida faculty are known throughout the state, country, and world for their work in both the scholastic and medical fields.