Community Apgar Program

The goal of the Community Apgar Project is to identify the factors or characteristics that are predictive of a hospital's success in recruiting and retaining family practice physicians. 

The Community Apgar Project began as a research project among critical access hospitals in Idaho, spearheaded by Dr. Ed Baker, a researcher from Boise State University, and Dr. Dave Schmitz, a family practitioner from the Idaho family medicine residency program.  Wyoming is the second state in the nation to implement the Critical Access Hospitals (CAH) Community Apgar Project.   WHRN began administering the project during the fall of 2010. The project was executed in two stages:  data collection from hospital CEOs and family practice physicians from 15 Wyoming critical access hospitals, and then presentation of the data to the CEO, the physician, and the hospital board.  Twelve visits to critical access hospitals across Wyoming wrapped up the first phase of the Community Apgar Project.  With data collection complete researchers at Boise State University created a statewide comparative database as well as location-specific results.  Presentations to the hospitals were completed during the spring of 2011 and focused on advantages and suggestions for improvement identified from the data collection process.

Spousal satisfaction was identified by both administrators and physicians in the Wyoming study as one of the more important factors in physician recruitment and retention. Revenue flow and income guarantee emerged as crucial factors that are indicative or the importance of economic stability for physician practices in Wyoming CAH communities. Physician workforce stability, call and practice coverage, competition, and perception of quality factors were also identified as important and are all related to the history and sustainability of physician medical staffing and the collegiality of physicians in providing high quality care to patients.

Final results from the second year's data collection have been tabulated. Results are available upon request.