High quality primary care is recognized as the foundation of a strong health care system. Yet in the U.S., primary care is faced with many challenges, including workforce shortages, attrition, and burnout; unsustainable primary care payment models and chronic underspending; inequitable access, increasing disparities, and lack of affordability; fragmentation and shifting practice organization and ownership; an aging and increasingly complex patient population with a high burden of multimorbidity; and the impact of natural and manmade events on individual and population health.
Primary care research is vital to ensure a strong primary care foundation. Without a rigorous, innovative, and solution-oriented research enterprise committed to understanding the challenges facing primary care, primary care will continue to struggle, and health outcomes will further deteriorate. The National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research (NCEPCR) is dedicated to not only increasing the amount and impact of primary care research, but also making primary care research more visible, accessible, coordinated, actionable, and effective.
I am proud to share the second-ever report showcasing the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ’s) recent investments in primary care research. In this NCEPCR report, we synthesize information about AHRQ’s recent primary care research efforts from across the agency, including grants, contracts, initiatives, and resources. We hope that this report serves as a resource for researchers, clinicians and clinical teams, quality improvement experts, and decision makers who want to improve primary care quality, delivery, and experience for all.
NCEPCR envisions a future where all patients receive high quality, whole person, evidence-based, affordable primary health care from a healthy primary care workforce. Many gaps in our understanding of how to deliver on this vision of primary care remain to be filled, and such a future requires a sustainable and robust investment in primary care research.
Aimee R. Eden, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Director, National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research
Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement
