Technology and Advanced, Team-based Primary Care – #HITsm Chat Topic

We’re excited to share the topic and questions for this week’s #HITsm chat happening Friday, 7/8 at Noon ET (9 AM PT).  This week’s chat will be hosted by Christopher Crow, MD (@catalysthg) on the topic “Technology and Advanced, Team-based Primary Care.

Primary care providers face a unique dichotomy: Never have they been more valuable… and never has their future been more uncertain. Whether you look at the findings from organizations like NASEM–which characterize primary care as the only part of healthcare where an increased supply is associated with better population health and more equitable outcomes–or you talk to patients who have seen a material improvement in their health as a result of relationship-driven healthcare, it’s clear that primary care investment remains an under-explored frontier for healthcare transformation.

That is changing rapidly, with billions of dollars of private equity and venture capital money pouring into healthcare ($40 billion of venture capital invested toward digital health in 2021 alone). But to what end? While investment and technology innovation address some of the challenges that face primary care, questions remain around creating equitable patient access, expanding capacity for already-burned-out primary care providers, and producing sustainable, long-term value.

Broader adoption of advanced primary care models is one answer to this endemic issue–going beyond the traditional and transactional delivery model we’ve all come to know and replacing it with an outcomes-based and relationship-driven model.

Step one in converting to a healthcare system that embraces advanced primary care is the implementation of technology-enabled teams to support primary care physicians (PCPs) and their patients. In this scenario, PCPs lead teams that apply support services throughout the patient journey. Team roles include care managers and care coordinators, pharmacists, social workers, behavioral health specialists, and other, specialized experts who engage patients at every moment that matters. Step two requires new payment models that align care economics with the health of patients and the kind of longitudinal, relational care PCPs are meant to provide. The results will be transformative: Communities are healthier, costs are lower and PCPs are put back at the heart of the patient health journey.

It sounds simple enough, but there is much work to do to get to this place. So, for this week’s chat, we’ll discuss the state of primary care, the challenges to be overcome, and how we can create an advanced model for all.

Join us for this week’s #HITsm chat where we’ll be discussing the following topics.

Topics for this week’s #HITsm Chat:

T1: What do you believe to be the largest problem impacting the effectiveness of primary care today? #HITsm

T2: How can we empower PCPs to become more accessible to patients? #HITsm

T3: What role does technology play in expanding the capacity of PCPs? #HITsm

T4: As a patient, how do you think technology-enabled, team-based primary care would improve your healthcare experience? #HITsm

T5: What barriers stand in the way of achieving advanced primary care? #HITsm

Bonus: What are some meaningful ways you’d like patients to be able to engage with their PCP or their PCP’s care team between visits? #HITsm

Upcoming #HITsm Chat Schedule

7/15 – Social Determinants of Health (SDoH)
Hosted by Dr. Melissa Urrea from @naviHealthPAC

7/22 – Access to Care and Digital Health/Health IT
Hosted by Derek Streat (@dexcare)

We look forward to learning from the #HITsm community! As always, let us know if you’d like to host a future #HITsm chat or if you know someone you think we should invite to host.

If you’re searching for the latest #HITsm chat, you can always find the latest #HITsm chat and schedule of chats here.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

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