Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Current Issue
  • Content
    • Current Issue
    • Early Access
    • Multimedia
    • Podcast
    • Collections
    • Past Issues
    • Articles by Subject
    • Articles by Type
    • Supplements
    • Plain Language Summaries
    • Calls for Papers
  • Info for
    • Authors
    • Reviewers
    • Job Seekers
    • Media
  • About
    • Annals of Family Medicine
    • Editorial Staff & Boards
    • Sponsoring Organizations
    • Copyrights & Permissions
    • Announcements
  • Engage
    • Engage
    • e-Letters (Comments)
    • Subscribe
    • Podcast
    • E-mail Alerts
    • Journal Club
    • RSS
    • Annals Forum (Archive)
  • Contact
    • Contact Us
  • Careers

User menu

  • My alerts

Search

  • Advanced search
Annals of Family Medicine
  • My alerts
Annals of Family Medicine

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Current Issue
  • Content
    • Current Issue
    • Early Access
    • Multimedia
    • Podcast
    • Collections
    • Past Issues
    • Articles by Subject
    • Articles by Type
    • Supplements
    • Plain Language Summaries
    • Calls for Papers
  • Info for
    • Authors
    • Reviewers
    • Job Seekers
    • Media
  • About
    • Annals of Family Medicine
    • Editorial Staff & Boards
    • Sponsoring Organizations
    • Copyrights & Permissions
    • Announcements
  • Engage
    • Engage
    • e-Letters (Comments)
    • Subscribe
    • Podcast
    • E-mail Alerts
    • Journal Club
    • RSS
    • Annals Forum (Archive)
  • Contact
    • Contact Us
  • Careers
  • Follow annalsfm on Twitter
  • Visit annalsfm on Facebook
Article CommentaryInvited Commentary

Finding a Parsimonious Path for Primary Care Practice Transformation

Asaf Bitton
The Annals of Family Medicine April 2018, 16 (Suppl 1) S16-S19; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1370/afm.2234
Asaf Bitton
Ariadne Labs, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts Division of General Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts Center for Primary Care, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts
MD, MPH
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Figures & Data
  • eLetters
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF
Loading

Article Figures & Data

Tables

    • View popup
    Table 1

    A Few Parsimonious Enablers and Tenets of Primary Care Transformation

    System-level enablers
    Payment reform
    Practice facilitation
    Data use and aggregation
    More usable EHRs
    Practice-level tenets
    Build whole change together
     Focus on large-scale, long-term change to become the practice that you want to be for your patients and your staff
     Enlist everyone in the practice in the effort, including patients, families, and communities
     Use facilitators and facilitation strategies
     Change as a community, region, or system when possible
     Find the right financial payment model and structural support for long-lasting change
    Pace yourself
     Do not work too fast on too many things, but also do not work only on marginal changes that do not matter
     Sequence the change, starting with leadership, practice culture, and empanelment. Then move to other features of team-based care and coordination
     Build adaptive reserve and work on maintaining joy of practice
     Allow enough time to pass before passing judgment
    Focus on what matters most
     Explicitly target the most beneficial primary care outcomes or functions to for patients and communities, such as:
      Building long-term relationships
      Risk-stratified care management for high-need patients
      Key chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes mellitus
      Beneficial preventive measures (ie, immunizations, smoking cessation, colorectal cancer screening)
      Integrated behavioral health
      Social needs identification and resource connections
     Save the rest for another day—work on what matters most now
    Practice regular “quality improvement hygiene”
     Meet regularly as an entire team to review change
     Set targets and review progress toward those targets
     Use registries of electronic clinical quality measures (do not wait for old and often inaccurate claims quality data)
     Use an established quality improvement method—try changes and learn from them
     Involve patients and your community in the change upfront and throughout
    • EHR = electronic health record.

PreviousNext
Back to top

In this issue

The Annals of Family Medicine: 16 (Suppl 1)
The Annals of Family Medicine: 16 (Suppl 1)
Vol. 16, Issue Suppl 1
April 2018
  • Table of Contents
  • Index by author
Print
Download PDF
Article Alerts
Sign In to Email Alerts with your Email Address
Email Article

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on Annals of Family Medicine.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Finding a Parsimonious Path for Primary Care Practice Transformation
(Your Name) has sent you a message from Annals of Family Medicine
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the Annals of Family Medicine web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
6 + 6 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.
Citation Tools
Finding a Parsimonious Path for Primary Care Practice Transformation
Asaf Bitton
The Annals of Family Medicine Apr 2018, 16 (Suppl 1) S16-S19; DOI: 10.1370/afm.2234

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Get Permissions
Share
Finding a Parsimonious Path for Primary Care Practice Transformation
Asaf Bitton
The Annals of Family Medicine Apr 2018, 16 (Suppl 1) S16-S19; DOI: 10.1370/afm.2234
Twitter logo Facebook logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Jump to section

  • Article
    • Footnotes
    • References
  • Figures & Data
  • eLetters
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF

Related Articles

  • No related articles found.
  • PubMed
  • Google Scholar

Cited By...

  • Factors influencing family physician engagement in practice-based quality improvement: Qualitative study
  • The Capacity of Primary Care for Improving Evidence-Based Care: Early Findings From AHRQs EvidenceNOW
  • Google Scholar

More in this TOC Section

  • Technical Assistance for Primary Care Practice Transformation: Free Help to Perform Unpaid Labor?
Show more Invited Commentary

Similar Articles

Keywords

  • primary care
  • transformation
  • facilitation
  • implementation science
  • payment

Content

  • Current Issue
  • Past Issues
  • Early Access
  • Plain-Language Summaries
  • Multimedia
  • Podcast
  • Articles by Type
  • Articles by Subject
  • Supplements
  • Calls for Papers

Info for

  • Authors
  • Reviewers
  • Job Seekers
  • Media

Engage

  • E-mail Alerts
  • e-Letters (Comments)
  • RSS
  • Journal Club
  • Submit a Manuscript
  • Subscribe
  • Family Medicine Careers

About

  • About Us
  • Editorial Board & Staff
  • Sponsoring Organizations
  • Copyrights & Permissions
  • Contact Us
  • eLetter/Comments Policy

© 2025 Annals of Family Medicine