Johns Hopkins report cites failure to integrate primary care providers into COVID-19 response as missed opportunity

A new report released by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security this week determined that the failure to incorporate primary care providers into the frontline response to COVID-19 and the larger public health system could have improved care, testing, and vaccination acceptance.

In “Integrating Primary Care and Public Health to Save Lives and Improve Practice During Public Health Crises: Lessons from COVID-19,” the authors repeatedly pointed to lack of integration as a failure during pandemic response. It was also one that afflicted all levels: had primary care, public health, and community-based organizations been better engaged, they noted, support for the public health response could have improved, and public health messaging could have been amplified.

“If these coordinated activities had been effectively implemented, they could have saved lives and reduced the health, economic, and societal impact of the pandemic in the United States,” the authors wrote. “The COVID-19 pandemic must be a catalyst for change, and now may be an opportune time to encourage better alignment and collaboration for primary care with public health.”

Among such changes were five points the authors saw as critical:

1. Auditing of existing federal and state agency policies and funding mechanisms to include support for primary care and public health integration, improving the functionality of both
2. Co-locate primary care and public health services to aid collaboration and help population-level health
3. Unity among primary care societies to provide a unified voice on public health with which to pressure congressional action
4. Support, protect, and sustain primary care and public health workforces
5. Enhance health systems surge capacity among primary care and public health partnerships, extend public health disease containment interventions, and overall ready the U.S. for improved response to future pandemics