Evaluating the implementation of collaborative teams in community family practice using the Primary Care Assessment Tool.

OBJECTIVE: To examine patients' perceptions of care outcomes following the introduction of collaborative teams into community family practices.

DESIGN: Cross-sectional, longitudinal study comprising 4 patient telephone surveys between 2007 and 2016, using random sampling of telephone records based on postal codes.

SETTING: Ten WestView Primary Care Network (WPCN) clinics in Alberta, serving a suburban-rural population of approximately 89 000 and an aggregate clinic panel of 61 611 (in 2016).

PARTICIPANTS: Adults aged 18 and older with a visit to a family physician in a WPCN clinic at least once in the previous 18 months.

INTERVENTIONS: In 2006, WPCN implemented a decentralized and distributed collaborative team model, integrating nonphysician health care professionals into member clinics.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The Primary Care Assessment Tool (PCAT) was used to evaluate standardized primary care delivery domains. Between-year changes were compared using ANOVA (analysis of variance). Clinic-level subgroup analyses were performed.

RESULTS: The number of completed surveys included 896 in 2007, 904 in 2010, 1000 in 2013, and 1800 in 2016, reaching 90% to 100% of the targeted sample size. In aggregate, the WPCN PCAT summary score and the scores of 4 core and 2 ancillary domains of primary care exceeded the quality threshold of 3.0: extent of affiliation, ongoing care, first-contact utilization, coordination of care, family-centredness, and cultural competence. The first-contact access domain significantly improved from 2007 to 2016 ( P < .001). The domains extent of affiliation, first-contact utilization, and coordination of information systems were unchanged. Ongoing care, coordination of care, comprehensiveness, family-centredness, community orientation, and cultural competence decreased. Except for in 2010, the 2 highest scoring clinics were non-participating solo practices; the lowest-scoring clinic was the one with the largest number of physicians. Across survey years, the PCAT summary score increased statistically significantly for 1 solo practice, remained consistent at an above-quality threshold for another, but decreased for all multi-physician clinics. Unattached patients (ie, those without a family doctor) scored the lowest.

CONCLUSION: This study found that WPCN provides high-quality primary care overall, but that patient-perceived outcomes do not indicate global improvement concurrent with team-based initiatives. Decreased standardization of the distributed model likely influenced study-observed variations in clinic performance. Future research should identify clinic and team characteristics that benefit most from team-based care and factors that explain solo practices outperforming models of team-based care.