Building Team-based Primary Care: Lessons From an Academic–Community Network Partnership

Abstract:Background: Team-based care is fundamental to providing high-quality health care for patients. However, moving from a traditional, hierarchical way of providing care to team-based care is challenging and involves systematic and sustained process changes.Objectives: To describe the implementation and evaluation of a partnership between academics, clinic, and community to improve team-based care in primary care practices serving vulnerable populations utilizing a structured change package and implementation support.Methods: The partners 1) created a six-strategy structured change package, 2) designed implementation support, and 3) evaluated implementation using an assessment scale at baseline and every 6 months.Results: Practices improved in all care-team functions from May 2015 to August 2018, with the most improvement seen in population management, planned care and empanelment.Conclusions: Academic–community partnerships can use evidence-based practice supports to measurably improve team-based care in primary care practices serving vulnerable populations.