A New Comprehensive Measure of High-Value Aspects of Primary Care

The Article in Brief

A New Comprehensive Measure of High-Value Aspects of Primary Care

Rebecca S. Etz , and colleagues

Background There are a number of measures to assess aspects of primary care, but a new measure breaks new ground by combining experiences of patients, clinicians, and payers and allowing the most informed reporter--the patient--to assess vital primary care functions that are often missed.

What This Study Found Researchers asked crowdsourced samples of 412 patients, 525 primary care clinicians, and 85 health care payers to describe what provides value in primary care, then asked 70 primary care and health services experts for additional insights. A multidisciplinary team analyzed these qualitative data to develop a set of patient-reported items. The resulting Person-Centered Primary Care Measure concisely represents the broad scope of primary care, with 11 domains each represented by a single item: accessibility, comprehensiveness, continuity, integration, coordination, relationship, advocacy, family context, community context, health promotion, and goal-oriented care. While existing measures evaluate the experience of care delivery based only on clinical processes and outcomes, the new measure focuses on care aspects that contribute to patient perceptions of the integrating, prioritizing, and personalizing functions of primary care.

Implications

• The ability to assess primary care as a whole and through the lens of the patient makes the Person-Centered Primary Care Measure both unique and meaningful, the authors state.