Primary healthcare transformation: moving from common sense to common practice

Abstract

There is no disputing that the key to any high-performing healthcare system is a high-performing primary healthcare system. As health systems around the globe grapple with aging, sicker populations, variable quality of care and unsustainable growth in health expenditures, the overhauling of primary healthcare cannot be put off any longer. Patient centred. Community designed. Team delivered. These are the tenets behind Saskatchewan's recently released framework for achieving a high-performing primary healthcare system. It has much in common with the primary healthcare framework offered by Kates and colleagues; and given its promising genesis, perhaps (finally) what has eluded many health systems so far can be achieved in the province that 50 years ago led the country in healthcare innovation.