Strengthening Team-Based Primary Care
Prinicipal Investigator: Dr. Maria Mathews
Team-based primary care addresses many health workforce challenges, including shortages of primary care providers. Nurses (including nurse practitioners [NPs] registered nurses [RNs] and registered/licensed practical nurses [R/LPNs]) comprise the second largest group of primary care providers (after family physicians) and the most common non-physician member of teams. I have described the contributions of primary care nurses working in long-term care facilities, rural communities, and in pandemic preparedness. Working with long-time collaborator Dr. Julia Lukewich, we established professional competencies for RNs in primary care, highlighted the positive impacts of RNs patient and system outcomes in primary care, and in the FPN study described the practice, funding, and organizational attributes that promote more effective team functioning.8 In Scope -PCN, we are currently examining mechanisms to improve scope of practice enactment of NPs, RNs and R/LPNs working in primary care teams.9 In the DiCE project, we are evaluating the outcomes of the Primary Care Diabetes Support Program in London, Ontario aims to demonstrate the benefit of upstream investment in team-based primary care on patient and provider outcomes and health system costs.
