Engagement Strategies to Advance Community-Centered Primary Care

An article by LPHI's Clinical Transformation and Evaluation and Research teams titled Engagement Strategies to Advance Community-Centered Primary Care, was recently published in a supplemental issue of the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice. In this article, LPHI team members discuss key stakeholder engagement strategies that greatly contributed to the successful design and implementation of the Primary Care Capacity Project (PCCP), a project of the Gulf Region Health Outreach Program that expands access to high quality, integrated, and sustainable community-based primary care along the Gulf Coast communities.

PCCP engaged a large number of stakeholders early on in the project, including 4 primary care organizations, over 20 federally qualified health centers, public health institutes, health information exchanges, national experts, academic organizations, and health departments along with their relevant community partners. This article examines the strategies PCCP used to engage stakeholders to not only understand the authentic voice and need of the communities but to also identify ways to complement and not duplicate already existing efforts. Strategies such as community prioritization convenings, peer-to-peer learning through the Regional Care Collaborative, and dyadic interviews were instrumental in linking stakeholders and maximizing capacity-building efforts.

The engagement strategies highlighted in this article greatly encapsulate the LPHI mission. Building trusted relationships in these unique coastal communities resulted in a legacy community investment that better positioned the region for continued knowledge transfer and future opportunities.