Beyond the Clinic Family Medicine on a Mission Part 1: How Air Force Physicians Achieve Humanitarian Goals Read Family Medicine on a Mission Part 1: How Air Force Physicians Achieve Humanitarian Goals
Phoenix Newsletter - March 2025 President’s Message: ABFM’s Unwavering Commitment to Diplomates and the Specialty Read President’s Message: ABFM’s Unwavering Commitment to Diplomates and the Specialty
Home Research Research Library The Primary Care Spend Model: a systems approach to measuring investment in primary care The Primary Care Spend Model: a systems approach to measuring investment in primary care 2019 Topic(s) Role of Primary Care Increased investment in primary care is associated with lower healthcare costs and improved population health. The allocation of scarce resources should be driven by robust models that adequately describe primary care activities and spending within a health system, and allow comparisons within and across health systems. However, disparate definitions result in wide variations in estimates of spending on primary care. We propose a new model that allows for a dynamic assessment of primary care spending (PC Spend) within the context of a system’s total healthcare budget. The model articulates varied definitions of primary care through a tiered structure which includes overall spending on primary care services, spending on services delivered by primary care professionals and spending delivered by providers that can be characterised by the ‘4Cs’ (first contact, continuous, comprehensive and coordinated care). This unifying framework allows a more refined description of services to be included in any estimate of primary care spend and also supports measurement of primary care spending across nations of varying economic development, accommodating data limitations and international health system differences. It provides a goal for best accounting while also offering guidance, comparability and assessments of how primary care expenditures are associated with outcomes. Such a framework facilitates comparison through the creation of standard definitions and terms, and it also has the potential to foster new areas of research that facilitate robust policy analysis at the national and international levels. This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. Read More ABFM Research Read all 2011 The American Board of Family Medicine certification examination: a proxy for quality Go to The American Board of Family Medicine certification examination: a proxy for quality 2013 Unequal Distribution of the U.S. Primary Care Workforce Go to Unequal Distribution of the U.S. Primary Care Workforce 2004 The Future of Family Medicine: a collaborative project of the family medicine community Go to The Future of Family Medicine: a collaborative project of the family medicine community 1987 Pilot study using ‘dangerous answers’ as scoring technique on certifying examinations Go to Pilot study using ‘dangerous answers’ as scoring technique on certifying examinations
ABFM Research Read all 2011 The American Board of Family Medicine certification examination: a proxy for quality Go to The American Board of Family Medicine certification examination: a proxy for quality 2013 Unequal Distribution of the U.S. Primary Care Workforce Go to Unequal Distribution of the U.S. Primary Care Workforce 2004 The Future of Family Medicine: a collaborative project of the family medicine community Go to The Future of Family Medicine: a collaborative project of the family medicine community 1987 Pilot study using ‘dangerous answers’ as scoring technique on certifying examinations Go to Pilot study using ‘dangerous answers’ as scoring technique on certifying examinations
2011 The American Board of Family Medicine certification examination: a proxy for quality Go to The American Board of Family Medicine certification examination: a proxy for quality
2013 Unequal Distribution of the U.S. Primary Care Workforce Go to Unequal Distribution of the U.S. Primary Care Workforce
2004 The Future of Family Medicine: a collaborative project of the family medicine community Go to The Future of Family Medicine: a collaborative project of the family medicine community
1987 Pilot study using ‘dangerous answers’ as scoring technique on certifying examinations Go to Pilot study using ‘dangerous answers’ as scoring technique on certifying examinations