Multidisciplinary Primary Health Care Teams Research Articles

Shaping Primary Health Care Teams and Integrated Care in Québec: An Overview of Policies (2000-2020)

Primary Health Care (PHC) teams are an important component of the health system – particularly in terms of integrating care for vulnerable patients living with complex health and social needs. Over the last two decades, PHC teams have been implemented in different forms across Canadian provinces and territories. This article explores the health care policies that shaped the form and functions of PHC team-based care in Québec over the past 20 years (2002-2022). In Québec, the main model of multidisciplinary PHC teams – Family Medicine Groups or Groupe de médecine de famille (GMFs) – were created in 2002. In 2004, structural reforms led to the creation of local health networks (LHNs). LHNs promoted coordinated and collaborative activities between health and social services providers such as GMFs located in the same geographic regions. This was followed by another structural reform of the health system in 2015, leading to the creation of broader territorial health networks with the aim to heighten coordination and collaboration among provider organizations. Various policies have strengthened the PHC team-based model. For instance, the introduction of nurse practitioners, pharmacists, and social workers with extended scopes of practice shaped the configuration of GMFs while enhancing inter-professional collaborative practices. This article highlights important insights that could advance the understanding and creation of future PHC policy initiatives.

The quality of alternative models of primary health care and morbidity and mortality in Brazil: a national longitudinal analysis

BackgroundEvidence is limited on health benefits from quality improvement of primary healthcare (PHC) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This study investigated whether increasing PHC quality in Brazil with highly-skilled health professionals and integrated community health workers (CHWs) was associated with reductions in hospitalizations and mortality beyond benefits derived from increasing access. MethodsAnnual municipal-level data for 5,411 municipalities between 2000 and 2014 were analysed using fixed effects panel regressions. PHC quality was measured as: i) the proportion of consultations provided by highly-skilled health professionals (doctors and nurses); and ii) the proportion of visits provided by CHWs from multidisciplinary PHC teams. Models assessed associations between PHC quality and hospitalization and mortality from diabetes, cardiovascular disease (CVD), tuberculosis, leprosy, perinatal and maternal causes, and adjusted for PHC access, utilisation, presence of secondary care services, and socioeconomic factors. FindingsA one percentage point increase in the proportion of consultations provided by highly-skilled health professionals was associated with 0•019 fewer deaths from diabetes per 100,000 population (95%CI: -0•034, -0•003; p-value: 0.0167) and 0•029 fewer hospitalizations per 100,000 from leprosy (95%CI: -0•055, -0•002; p-value: 0.0321). A one percentage point increase in the proportion of care provided by CHWs from multidisciplinary PHC teams was associated with 0•025 fewer deaths from CVD per 100,000 (95%CI: -0•050, -0•001; p-value: 0.0442) and 0•148 fewer maternal hospital admissions per 100,000 (95%CI: -0•286, -0•010; p-value: 0.0356). No significant associations were found for the other twenty pairs of exposures and outcomes analysed. InterpretationInvesting in higher-quality PHC models with highly-skilled health professionals and integrated CHWs can deliver reductions in mortality and hospitalizations in LMICs. FundingNone.

Health Professional Education And Universal Health Coverage: A Summary Of Challenges And Selected Case Studies.

Low- and middle-income countries are experiencing serious shortages in meeting health workforce requirements for universal health coverage. We examine how national-level policies can address these deficiencies and support the development of an appropriately skilled health workforce in line with population needs. We discuss three innovative, government-led solutions that are designed to align health workforce training with the demands of universal health coverage. Specifically, we discuss two initiatives to train and retain doctors in rural areas of Thailand, the large-scale training of community health workers within multidisciplinary primary health care teams in Brazil, and the introduction of a postgraduate diploma program in primary care for nurses in India. Several positive outcomes have been associated with these initiatives, including improvements in the rural retention of doctors in Thailand and reductions in infant and child mortality rates in Brazil. However, further research is needed to assess the impact of such initiatives on the long-term retention of workers-particularly doctors-and the adequacy of the training offered to lower-skilled workers to effectively plug medical personnel gaps. Systematic monitoring of program affordability and cost-effectiveness over time must be prioritized, alongside efforts to disseminate lessons learned.

The communicative power of nurse practitioners in multidisciplinary primary healthcare teams

The purpose of the study is to explore the role of the nurse practitioner (NP) in facilitating knowledge exchange within multidisciplinary primary healthcare teams. The rationale for the study is that most knowledge transfer and exchange literature is from a single profession perspective; yet, an increasing number of healthcare practitioners work in the context of multidisciplinary teams. There is little research examining the mechanisms by which knowledge crosses professional and disciplinary boundaries. The study's data source is a survey administered to NPs in urban, rural, and remote primary healthcare teams in Saskatchewan. The mapping techniques of social network analysis are applied to the survey data. The study's conclusions concern the structure of the intrateam knowledge-exchange behaviors and, in particular, the role of the NP as knowledge boundary spanner. The study hypothesizes that the hallmark of well-functioning multidisciplinary teams is the effective intrateam knowledge exchange and that Saskatchewan's new NPs bring a "boundary-spanning" capacity to the knowledge exchange of the province's multidisciplinary primary healthcare teams. The study fills this gap in the conceptual and empirical research within the evolving context of the reorganization of primary health care.

Knowledge flow and exchange in interdisciplinary primary health care teams (PHCTs): an exploratory study

Improving the process of evidence-based practice in primary health care requires an understanding of information exchange among colleagues. This study explored how clinically oriented research knowledge flows through multidisciplinary primary health care teams (PHCTs) and influences clinical decisions. This was an exploratory mixed-methods study with members of six PHCTs in Ontario, Canada. Quantitative data were collected using a questionnaire and analyzed with social network analysis (SNA) using UCINet. Qualitative data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analyzed with content analysis procedures using NVivo8. It was found that obtaining research knowledge was perceived to be a shared responsibility among team members, whereas its application in patient care was seen as the responsibility of the team leader, usually the senior physician. PHCT members acknowledged the need for resources for information access, synthesis, interpretation, or management. Information sharing in interdisciplinary teams is a complex and multifaceted process. Specific interventions need to be improved such as formalizing modes of communication, better organizing knowledge-sharing activities, and improving the active use of allied health professionals. Despite movement toward team-based models, senior physicians are often gatekeepers of uptake of new evidence and changes in practice.

Motivators, enablers, and barriers to building allied health research capacity

PurposeA sound, scientific base of high quality research is needed to inform service planning and decision making and enable improved policy and practice. However, some areas of health practice, particularly many of the allied health areas, are generally considered to have a low evidence base. In order to successfully build research capacity in allied health, a clearer understanding is required of what assists and encourages research as well as the barriers and challenges.Participants and methodsThis study used written surveys to collect data relating to motivators, enablers, and barriers to research capacity building. Respondents were asked to answer questions relating to them as individuals and other questions relating to their team. Allied health professionals were recruited from multidisciplinary primary health care teams in Queensland Health. Eighty-five participants from ten healthcare teams completed a written version of the research capacity and culture survey.ResultsThe results of this study indicate that individual allied health professionals are more likely to report being motivated to do research by intrinsic factors such as a strong interest in research. Barriers they identified to research are more likely to be extrinsic factors such as workload and lack of time. Allied health professionals identified some additional factors that impact on their research capacity than those reported in the literature, such as a desire to keep at the “cutting edge” and a lack of exposure to research. Some of the factors influencing individuals to do research were different to those influencing teams. These results are discussed with reference to organizational behavior and theories of motivation.ConclusionSupporting already motivated allied health professional individuals and teams to conduct research by increased skills training, infrastructure, and quarantined time is likely to produce better outcomes for research capacity building investment.

Mutual understanding in multi-disciplinary primary health care teams

Empirical research on multi-disciplinary health care teams has yet to explore the development of mutual understanding between team members in the course of their collective clinical decision-making. This paper addresses this gap in the literature directly by examining changes in mutual understanding and the extent to which its facilitation is shared by individual members of multi-disciplinary health care teams. A Habermasian theoretical framework is used to operationalize mutual understanding. Social network analysis is used to analyze survey data on team-based clinical decision-making collected from multi-disciplinary health care teams in a Canadian province. The results of the study indicate that mutual understanding between team members ebbs and flows over the course of their collective clinical decisions. Further, as the extent of mutual understanding within the team increases, its facilitation becomes more equally shared among team members. The paper closes by specifying a practical outcome of the future work: a typology of clinical decisions that health care teams are able to use as an evaluation tool to assess how effectively they are making collective clinical decisions. As an evaluation tool, the typology would foster open and deliberative discussion, enable critical self-reflection, and thereby further enhancing mutual understanding within the teams.

Pharmacist's identity development within multidisciplinary primary health care teams in Ontario; qualitative results from the IMPACT (†) project

Background Multidisciplinary team development generates changes in roles, responsibilities, and identities of individual health care providers. The Integrating Family Medicine and Pharmacy to Advance Primary Care Therapeutics (IMPACT) project introduced pharmacists into family practice teams across Ontario, Canada, to provide medication assessments, drug information, and academic detailing and to develop office system enhancements to improve drug therapy. Objective To analyze pharmacists' narrative accounts during early integration to study identity development within emerging team-based care. Method Qualitative design using 63 pharmacist narrative reports of pharmacists' experiences over a 9-month integration period. Four independent researchers with varied professional backgrounds used immersion and crystallization to identify codes and iterative grounded theory to determine and debate process and content themes relevant to identity development. Results The pharmacists' narratives spoke of the daily experiences of integrating into a family practice setting: feeling valued and contributing concretely to patient care; feeling underutilized; feeling like a nuisance, or feeling as though working too slowly. Pharmacist mentors helped deal with uncertainty and complexity of care. Pharmacists perceived that complementary clinical contributions enhanced their status with physicians and motivated pharmacists to take on new responsibilities. Changes in perspective, clinic-relevant skill development, and a new sense of professionalism signaled an emerging pharmacist family practice identity. Conclusion Pharmacists found that the integration into team-based primary health care provided both challenges and fresh opportunities. Pharmacists' professional identities evolved in relation to valued role models, emerging practice-level opportunities, and their patient-related contributions.