High-quality primary care is the foundation of the health care system. It provides continuous, person-centered, relationship-based care that considers the needs and preferences of individuals, families, and communities.
"If we increase access to robust primary care, more people and more communities will be healthier, and no other part of health care can make this claim—making primary care a common good is essential to improving health equity in this country,"
committee co-chair Robert Phillips, MD, MSPH, founding Executive Director of the Center for Professionalism and Value in Health Care.
A new report just released by The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) – Implementing High-Quality Primary Care: Rebuilding the Foundation of Health Care – offers an evidence-based plan with actionable objectives and recommendations for implementing high-quality primary care in the United States. NASEM recommendations carry the weight of the highest science organization in the country. This first report in 25 years builds upon the recommendations from the 1996 Institute of Medicine report, “Primary Care: America’s Health in a New Era.” The implementation plan balances national needs for scalable solutions while allowing for adaptations to meet local needs.
Unequal access to primary care is a driver of health disparities. The COVID-19 pandemic amplified pervasive economic, mental health, and social health disparities that high-quality primary care might have reduced. Primary care is the only health care component where an increased supply is associated with better population health and more equitable outcomes. The pandemic also revealed the fragility of primary care payment and lack of an accountable federal champion for primary care.
The pandemic also sadly unmasked the inequities routinely faced in health care by Black, Latino, and poor patients. In this month’s editorial in Annals of Family Medicine, Learning from COVID-19: System Blindness to Primary Care, ABFM emphasizes the structural barriers to primary care that are facing our health care system and the urgent need for change, supporting the findings from the NASEM report.
"The pandemic was telling for the lack of focus on primary care as part of the solution and this report calls for an organizing home within the federal government so that it is not neglected again, says Dr. Phillips. “It also calls for increased investment in primary care, training where people live and work, and IT solutions that support us in caring for people."
Download the report and learn more.
Watch the recorded joint briefing on the NASEM report on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheABFM/videos/465458267857190
