Citation. Healthy health care systems learn and improve through the measurement of performance, delivering quality care that is valued by patients and professionals and contributing to health for all.
Goal or mission statement. We investigate how the structure and organisation of primary care systems can contribute to improved quality of care, better health outcomes, and reduced health care costs, and how is this influenced by contextual factors.
Research themes. An important research theme of our work is dedicated to investigate how countries can develop or maintain a strong primary care system within a particular socioeconomic, political, cultural, demographic and epidemiologic context, and contribute to the overall health care sector.
Primary care is investigated in its wider health system context. The need to provide integrated healthcare services is becoming increasingly clear. Healthcare systems are complex adaptive systems that require coherence to optimally function, but at the same time are subject to internal and external dynamics. To gain insight into the functioning of primary care, our research line addresses also services delivery that takes place at related health and social care sectors such as the hospital and long term care sector, and we investigate the consequences for (among others) the accessibility of primary care, under/over treatment in primary care, health professional’s referral behaviour and coordination of care with other professions.
This research is closely related to the research theme in which we investigate how we can measure the functioning, performance and contribution of primary care systems to health care system outcomes to facilitate evidence-based policymaking. Health systems performance indicator development and application forms an important part of this work as sound and reliable performance indicators are a prerequisite for health system performance measurement and management.
We base our research largely on the underlying theories of learning healthcare systems (performance information as a driver for performance improvement); value creation instead of cost-effectiveness as the goal of healthcare systems; new views about health (the patient as a producer of his own health); and complex adaptive system theory (a system is the dynamic result of interdependencies and reactions between and within sub-systems and professions).
Given the policy relevance of our research, we highly invest in strategic partnerships with the field, such as international organisations (e.g. WHO, OECD, World Bank, European Commission) and national governments. This research line is a WHO Collaborating Centre for Quality and Equity of Primary Care Systems (since 2017).
Dr. Dionne Kringos