Implementing Primary Health Care Teams and Integrated Care in Alberta, Canada

Abstract

Improving health services integration for persons living with complex health and social needs is a priority for Canadian health systems. Alberta’s approach to promoting and incentivizing interprofessional team-based primary health care (PHC) has focused on creating a universal system of networks of family physician clinics or Primary Care Networks (PCNs). First implemented in 2003, PCNs aimed to improve access and quality of interdisciplinary care using PHC teams. While an interprofessional PHC team approach is considered a basic tenet of health services integration, several barriers to implementing team-based care have been identified in Alberta, such as physician and PCN funding models, lack of integrated electronic medical records (EMRs), and lack of standardized evaluation. Strategies for implementing team-based PHC policies include building on existing structures, gaining buy-in from frontline clinicians, and enabling providers to work at their full scope of practice. PCNs can improve how they provide team-based care by focusing on patient-centred care and streamlining EMRs. Further research is needed to determine optimal approaches for evaluation and performance measurement to facilitate quality improvement at the clinical level and improve performance at the system level.

Keywords

• primary healthcare
• team-based care
• primary care networks
• complex health needs
• interprofessional teams
• integration