Integrating care across provider types is a key strategy for improving care for people with complex health and social needs. This is particularly valuable in primary care, which often serves as an individual’s entry point into the health system and is responsible for coordinating care for this population. Care integration is also a common focus of care delivery and payment reform initiatives. Accountable care organizations, for example, bring together health care providers, including primary care, to enable high-quality, coordinated care for patients. 

To better understand primary care practices’ experiences with care integration and how Medicaid policy and payment reform can influence integration, the Better Care Playbook spoke with Michaela Kerrissey, PhD, associate professor of management at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Kerrissey’s research focuses on innovation in health care organizations, including how ACOs can encourage interdisciplinary and integrated care and help overcome organizational silos.