Making best use of every healthcare provider's knowledge and skills

Abstract

In "Organizing Primary Care for an Integrated System" Rosser and Kasperski propose changing the way family physicians practice to address deficiencies in the current primary-care delivery system in Canada. These deficiencies include a growing shortage of physicians, particularly in rural areas of Canada; the growing dependence of Canadians on acute hospital emergency units or "walk- in clinics" for primary care; fragmentation and unnecessary duplication in the delivery of primary-care services; lack of understanding on the part of the community and hospital sectors of the role of the family-practice physician; a fee-for-service funding model that does not reward prevention and health-promotion initiatives by physicians and makes high-problem visits the most lucrative; and lack of clarity with regard to what the public should expect from their physicians.