Dynamics of Primary Health Care Teams

The focus of this research abstract is a subset of data emerging from
a complex knowledge-to-practice study developing geriatric service
capabilities in two innovative formats for delivering primary care in
Ontario, Canada – Family Health Teams and Community Health Centers.
Data from 32 such teams situated in six geographic locations across
the province included (a) exchange and referral network data between
different health professionals, (b) contextual attributes, such as
co-location status and primary care format, plus (c) data from the
Dimensions of Teamwork survey (DTEAM), a validated measure for
understanding the dynamics of health care teams. In this abstract the
results arising from the network and contextual data sources are
examined. The analysis provides insights into the diversity of network
characteristics across and within the two primary care formats. The
potential relationships between network characteristics and team
measurement are anticipated and the benefits of combining the
aforementioned three sources of data (i.e. networks, team attributes
and survey) to facilitate a cross-disciplinary analysis on how these
primary care teams function and inform the generation of team-specific
recommendations. This is proposed through a combination of a network
model and an agent-based model for testing process improvement.