ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Geoffrey Mills, MD, PhD; William T. Leach, MA; Richard W. Hass, PhD; Allison Casola, PhD; Amy Cunningham, PhD; Christopher Chambers, MD; Rebecca Etz, PhD; Anna Flattau, MD
Corresponding Author: Geoffrey Mills MD, PhD; Department of Family and Community Medicine, Thomas Jefferson University
Email: Geoffrey.Mills@Jefferson.edu
DOI: 10.3122/jabfm.2024.240433R2
Keywords: Continuity of Patient Care, Family Medicine, Implementation Science, Patient Care Team, Patient-Centered Care, Patient Reported Outcome Measures, Primary Health Care, Quality Improvement
Dates: Submitted: 12-03-2024; Revised: 02-07-2025; 02-11-2025; Accepted: 02-24-2025
Status: In production for ahead of print.
OBJECTIVE: The Person-Centered Primary Care Measure (PCPCM) is a patient assessment of their longitudinal experience of care with a clinician and care team, evaluating core functions of primary care in the health system. However, the optimal process of implementation across health systems, including how and when to administer the survey, reporting, and process improvement activities tied to survey data, has not been established.
METHODS: We distributed the 11-question PCPCM experience survey to 329,450 patients empaneled across 78 primary care practices between April 2023 and January 2024. We evaluated survey completion parameters, psychometric properties, and mean responses in relationship to patient-level demographic variables.
RESULTS: In this large, heterogeneous system of primary care practices, the PCPCM survey was successfully distributed using the Press Ganey (South Bend, IN) platform. We found a low response rate (6.4%), but demonstrated good internal consistency, with a skew toward higher scores. PCPCM scores varied by age, sex, race, primary care clinician type, and the number of years the patient had been at their current primary care practice. Responses varied significantly by patient race, but differences were small and not uniform in direction. Black or African American patients were significantly less likely to believe that the care provided by the practice was informed by knowledge of their community, compared with all other racial groups.
CONCLUSIONS: The PCPCM was implemented successfully in a large network of primary care practices, but more work is needed to improve the response rate. Future work should focus on the use of the PCPCM for practice and clinician feedback and validation of individual PCPCM items.