Retooling Primary Care in the COVID-19 Era

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic exposed numerous deficiencies of the U.S. primary care infrastructure. The system is overstretched with little to no surge capacity to deal with crisis situations, its reach restrained due to overreliance on brick and mortar clinics, and its behavior overwhelmingly more reactive than preventive. As delivery systems reorganize on the fly to fight COVID-19, many are turning to tools like telemedicine, pre-visit planning, and centralized population health programs. We propose how these rapid transformations happening across the country, born out of necessity, present a silver lining opportunity to fix primary care. We describe how integrating telemedicine, patient-generated data, and preventive care into a retooled intake and care optimization process is achievable through an approach powered by humans and augmentable with artificial intelligence. Primary care must retool to meet the challenge of COVID-19 and emerge in the post-crisis world better equipped to care for a wounded nation. Our collective willingness to invest in primary care teams, relaxation of rules around telemedicine reimbursement and patient-generated data sharing, workforce training, and movement to value-based payments are necessary to achieve this vision.