Implementing High-Quality Primary Care in California: A Policy Roundtable

For the first time in 27 years, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has issued a consensus report on primary care. Implementing High-Quality Primary Care: Rebuilding the Foundation of Health Care emphasizes that although primary care is the only health care component in which an increased supply is associated with better population health and more equitable outcomes, it is inequitably distributed and inadequately supported. Across the country, primary care receives a relatively small proportion of health system resources, it has no federal coordinating capacity or dedicated research support, and its workforce pipeline is shrinking. The report proposes a plan to improve primary care for people in every community through objectives that promote action and recommendations that can be adapted to both national and local needs.

Mathematica held a webinar on Thursday, September 23, 2021, from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. PT (2:00 to 3:30 p.m. ET) for a brief overview of the national consensus recommendations and a panel discussion with California health care experts about how to strengthen primary care in the Golden State. The discussion addressed these and other important questions:

• How do recent national recommendations on access, workforce and training, information technology capacity, measurement, and payment apply in California?
• How can we catalyze collective action in California to rebuild an equitable primary care foundation for the health care system?
• How are California leaders held accountable for progress in primary care?
• What can other states learn from California’s experiences?

Speakers included the following experts:

• Palav Babaria, Chief Quality Officer and Deputy Director of Quality and Population Health Management, California Department of Health Care Services
• Alice Hm Chen, Chief Medical Officer, Covered California
• Kathryn Phillips, Senior Program Officer, California Health Care Foundation
• Robert Phillips, Founding Executive Director, The Center for Professionalism & Value in Health Care at the American Board of Family Medicine Foundation; and Co-chair, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Committee on Implementing High-Quality Primary Care
• Diane Rittenhouse, Senior Fellow, Mathematica
• Richard Seidman, Chief Medical Officer, L.A. Care Health Plan