From the beginning of RIOS Net, both members and community representatives spoke clearly that the epidemics of obesity and diabetes must be the highest priorities
of the network. These are not easy problems. One of our earliest projects explored how primary care clinicians balance competing demands in patient encounters.
Our goal was to find ways that might help with this challenging task.
Gathering stories about how clinicians handle these problems brought out the art and complexity with which they work to better the health of those
they care for. Our members insights are published in an article in the July/August 2006 issue of Annals of Family Medicine,
titled "The Art and Complexity of Primary Care Clinicians’ Preventive
Counseling Decisions: Obesity as a Case Study". (PDF download)
"Clinicians’ decisions to include preventive counseling in the brief primary care encounter is the result of a complex set of foundational and situational factors, suggesting that efforts to increase the delivery of preventive counseling in primary care should move beyond previous research focusing on linear models of change."
