Primary Care for the Twenty-First Century

At the 2010 GoldLab Symposium, I discussed the challenges facing medical care systems as they try to build physician-centric primary care systems. Shortages of trained physicians force a rethinking of traditional solutions. Emerging technologies provide a host of new ways to respond.

In this presentation, I will reprise these arguments briefly and discuss the most promising technological advances, then present an alternative model for primary-care delivery that builds on patient and consumer-based solutions, rooted in the family and community. The model offers significant advantages in identifying and supporting people at risk of, or afflicted with, one or more chronic conditions. As this subpopulation represents the majority of the country's disease burden today and even more so tomorrow, the opportunity to influence both demand and overall costs of health care in our country is large.