Virtual integrated primary care teams: Recommendations for team-based care.

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Teamwork and Collaboration
• Virtual Healthcare Delivery

Background:

• The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of virtual care in integrated primary care.
• This shift poses challenges to traditional team-based care coordination and delivery.
• Behavioral health providers are key members of these integrated teams.

Purpose of the Study:

• To provide recommendations for integrated primary care teams to adapt to and sustain virtual team-based care.
• To leverage existing team literature to address challenges in virtual primary care settings.
• To support the effective integration of behavioral health providers in virtual care models.

Main Methods:

• Utilized the Seven C's framework by Salas et al. (2015) for organizing findings.
• Focused on key team dynamics: coordination, cooperation, cognition, and communication.
• Synthesized extant literature on team performance in healthcare.

Main Results:

• Improved team coordination can be achieved through implicit/explicit coordination and debriefings.
• Enhanced team cooperation may result from documented care coordination and refined feedback mechanisms.
• Cognition is improved by sharing team goals and cross-training; informal communication and closed-loop communication enhance team processes.

Conclusions:

• Initial recommendations are provided for integrated primary care teams transitioning to virtual care.
• Further research is needed to examine virtual integrated primary care teams.
• Evidence-based strategies are required to optimize virtual care delivery in primary care settings.