This article, published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine (JABFM), presents practice characteristics associated with greater patient-team partnership scores from the EvidenceNOW Southwest initiative.

Effective patient-team partnership recognizes patients’ contributions in decision-making and respecting patients’ goals and social context. Practice characteristics significantly associated with greater patient-team partnership were using patient registries, medically underserved area designation, multispecialty mix, and using clinical cardiovascular disease management guidelines.

Our findings suggest that patient-team partnership implementation in small primary care practices is moderate, and many practices can improve efforts to partner with patients to assess social needs, gather meaningful input, and offer resource connections. Strategies such as patient registries and evidence-based guidelines may effectively promote patient-team partnership in primary care.

Read the article in JABFM.