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Essential to any high-performing health system is coordination of primary care with other medical care and social services that patients receive. When primary care practices, specialists, hospitals, and social service providers work in harmony, patient outcomes are optimized.
Half of Americans have multiple chronic conditions, such as heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes. For these patients, their primary care doctor should serve as the central coordinator, managing relationships between specialists and hospitals and connecting patients to any health-related social supports they need, such as access to housing, transportation, or nutritious food.
The capacity of primary care providers to routinely coordinate their patients’ care varies globally — and even within individual countries. This variation can be caused by differences in how health care practices are structured, how care is funded and reimbursed, access to providers, and level of adoption of health information technology. When care is fragmented, clinicians can’t communicate effectively. This can result not only in inefficiencies like duplicative tests and unnecessary doctor visits, but also in negative health outcomes due to medication errors, tr