British Columbia’s (BC) primary care system is actively moving to team-based care. Team-based care can increase capacity, attachment, and access; provide more person-centred care; and improve health outcomes. With funding and support from the Ministry of Health, we are developing and conducting a team-based primary care evaluation.
The evaluation aims to understand the impacts of the transition to team-based primary care in BC, for both patients and healthcare teams, and to explore perceived changes across the following dimensions and aspects of the TEAM Framework.
- Patient experience
- Provider experience
- Team function
- Capacity and access
- Attachment
Evaluation Design
The evaluation will be conducted in two rounds (Figure 1), with approximately 15 clinics/health centres recruited for each round. A range of clinic and health centre types (e.g. CHCs, UPCCs, small private clinics), geographic locations, team compositions and types of professionals, in both rural and urban settings will be recruited.
Evaluation Data
The evaluation uses three data collection tools (Figure 2):
Patient Survey
Participating clinics/health centres will invite patients to complete a survey to assess aspects of patient experience including patient perceptions of access, person-centred care, and team function.
Team Survey
All clinic/health centre team members (healthcare providers and staff) will be invited to complete an online survey to assess provider/staff experience and team function.
Clinic Report
An online clinic report will be completed by each clinic/health centre to gather data including types of providers and staff, attachment numbers, access, and team capacity.
Data from each clinic/health centre will be summarized and shared with clinic/health centre team to inform changes and quality improvement work. Anonymized data from each round will be combined in to a provincial summary and shared with leadership and decision makers.
Participate in the Evaluation!
Do you want to learn about how your team is working together and contribute to team-based primary care policy in BC? Find out more here!