Can team-based care improve primary care delivery and patient outcomes?

In a team-based care approach, a diverse group of clinicians shares responsibility for a panel of patients and consults with each other regularly. This model of delivering primary care can improve patient care, practice workflows, and patient and physician satisfaction, according to a study published in Population Health Management.

Debora Goetz Goldberg, PhD, MHA, MBA and colleagues from George Washington University (Washington, DC), Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond, VA), and Carilion Family Medicine (Vinton, VA), conducted case studies of small primary care practices to assess three team-based care models.

In the article "Team-Based Care: A Critical Element of Primary Care Practice Transformation," the authors discuss the need to transform the delivery and financing of primary care. New models of care delivery models emphasize patient-centered care, which can be achieved with a team-based approach.

"Putting quality and safety improvement at the forefront of physicians' practice, learning to deliver more sensitive and responsive patient-centered care, learning to promote wellness proactively, and learning teamwork skills in patient-care settings are all competencies that have become expected of physicians," says Editor-in-Chief David B. Nash, MD, MBA, Dean and Dr. Raymond C. and Doris N. Grandon Professor, Jefferson School of Population Health, Philadelphia, PA.