While the 2012 meeting of the American Academy of Family Physicians focused on the latest in clinical issues with a family medicine focus and information on evidence-based CME (Continuing Medical Education), there was significant buzz about policy and politics.

One of the biggest issues, of course, was putting Meaningful Use and Health IT into the big picture for physicians grappling to understand the trajectory of health care systems affecting family physicians. Underlying this was discussion of how healthcare must remain a top priority.

“Our health care system — without reform — continues to be bogged down in fragmented, duplicative, and often unnecessary services that hinder access to quality care, and impose unnecessary costs on both individual patients and the nation,” Dr. Glen Stream, president of AAFP, said in a statement. “We welcome discussion about reforms that encourage coordination of care, ensure preventive services for Americans and payment for the value of care rather than the number of procedures provided.”

Founded in 1947, the AAFP represents 105,900 physicians and medical students nationwide and is the only medical society devoted solely to primary care. The family medicine workforce is facing a crisis in access to family medicine care, according to a recent report but is cautioning against stop-gap efforts to solve the primary care shortage and instead encouraging, physician-led, team-based care.

Student interest in family medicine has improved but slowed after two years of increases, as family medicine residency training programs attracted 1,335 medical students in a National Residency Matching Program, continuing a trend in medical students’ growing interest in becoming family physicians.