The Primary Care Extension Program: A Catalyst for Change

The Article in Brief

The Primary Care Extension Program: A Catalyst for Change

Robert L. Phillips, Jr , and colleagues

Background The US Affordable Care Act of 2010 provides unprecedented support for primary care, placing it at the core of a health care system that seeks to improve the experience of care, improve the health of populations, and reduce health care costs. This article describes how critical the Primary Care Extension Program (PCEP) is to enhancing primary care effectiveness, to the integration of primary care and public health, and to translating research into practice in order to achieve the goals described above.

What This Study Found Much as the Cooperative Extension Program of the US Department of Agriculture sped the modernization of farming a century ago, the PCEP could speed the transformation of primary care through local deployment of community-based Health Extension Agents. The authors call for $120 million in annual federal funding for the PCEP, with a target of $500 million for future appropriations. They conclude that the rapid pace of change in health care demands that a PCEP be viewed as an essential, not optional, ingredient for transformation of primary care and improvement of population health.