Annals of Family Medicine: Three Responses to NASEM's 2021 Primary Care Survival Report

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Feb. 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today in Annals of Family Medicine, three groups of U.S. and Canadian primary care researchers respond to the landmark 2021 National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) report on the implementation of high-quality primary care, the first of its kind since 1996.

In three articles, the authors provide perspectives on the report's five recommendations concerning payment, access, workforce development, information technology and primary care implementation.

Researchers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) assert that primary care's future rests upon strategic investments in research that emphasizes whole person care, wherein clinicians engage patients and families in managing illness and promoting wellness. Author Arlene Bierman, the director of AHRQ's Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement, and colleagues believe that enhancing the community-centeredness of primary care would reduce and ultimately eliminate long-standing inequities in access, quality, and outcomes of care.

Early career physicians led by Tracey L. Henry, MD write that the four C's of patient care (contact, continuity, coordination and comprehensiveness) may not be inclusive of the needs of under-resourced communities, and that diverse individuals are not sufficiently recruited or maintained in health care settings. Regarding payment reform, they argue that risk adjustment and value-based care will support equitable access and high-quality care to all communities.

A third paper authored by Azza Eissa, MD and colleagues, states that chronic underinvestment in primary care has hindered its potential to improve health disparities in North America. Applying a health equity lens to the five recommendations advanced in the 2021 NASEM report, the researchers provide their own recommendations on how the profession might operationalize them, including paying teams, not individual doctors, to care for people; ensuring high-quality care is available to everyone in every community; training primary care teams where people live and work; designing information technology that serves the patient, family and the interprofessional care team; and ensuring high-quality primary care is implemented.

Implementing High-Quality Primary Care Through a Health Equity Lens
Azza Eissa, MD, PhD, et al.
University of Toronto
Realizing the Dream: The Future of Primary Care Research
Arlene S. Bierman, MD, MS et al.
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

Health Equity: The Only Path Forward for Primary Care
Tracey L. Henry, MD, MS, MPH
Emory University School of Medicine

SOURCE Annals of Family Medicine