Measuring and assessing preventive medicine services in a student-run free clinic.

We conducted a chart review of 119 patients between June 2008 and June 2009, in order to determine the rates of seven preventive medicine services in our student-run free clinic. We compared our results with national goals as well as with the national adherence rates and the adherence rates of other community clinics. We found that our clinic met or exceeded the standard set by these clinics with respect to smoking cessation, alcohol abuse screening, and mammography; however, it did not meet this standard with respect to colonoscopy, Pap smear, influenza vaccination, or pneumococcal vaccination. Barriers to providing these services were examined. To improve the quality of our clinic further, we reviewed the literature in order to determine potential interventions to increase the number of preventive medicine services our patients receive.