Sharing Resources, Seizing Opportunities
<p>Most Americans get their health care from smaller independent physician practices. Owing to their limited resources, however, these providers typically are unable to deliver the breadth of services and engage in the range of quality improvement activities that are more common in larger practices.</p>
<p>In <a href="/publications/issue-briefs/2011/mar/sharing-resources-opportunities-smaller-primary-care-practices">Sharing Resources: Opportunities for Smaller Primary Care Practices to Increase Their Capacity for Patient Care</a>, Commonwealth Fund researchers shine a light on an especially promising strategy for solo and other small practices: sharing clinical support services and health information systems with other practices. As reported in the issue brief, survey data indicate that smaller practices that share resources are more likely to have advanced electronic medical records and health information technology, routinely track and manage patient information, have after-hours care arrangements, and engage in quality monitoring and benchmarking.</p>
<p>The brief discusses a number of strategies that can expand the resources available to smaller practices, and also describes federal, state, and private–sector initiatives already under way to foster resource-sharing and quality improvement. <a href="/publications/issue-briefs/2011/mar/sharing-resources-opportunities-smaller-primary-care-practices">Read more</a> to learn how shared-resource models can help strengthen primary care in the U.S.—a key goal of the Affordable Care Act. <br /></p>