A Quality Improvement Project for Understanding Work-Based Need in Ambulatory Care

Team-based care is needed across all ambulatory sites to provide care that is collaborative, patient-centered, timely, efficient, and equitable. This project clearly defined two distinct bodies of work present in every ambulatory setting across network practice sites: synchronous work and asynchronous work. Prior to this analysis, most practice sites were using the same staff to complete both types of work, resulting in fragmentation of work and inefficiencies in timely completion. Pilot studies were completed in a sampling of practice sites to test if assigning staff to specific types of work would result in better efficiencies and timely completion of work. In all pilots, this theory was upheld, leading to major changes in how work was separated and assigned.