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The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically disrupted health care systems and delivery in the United States. Despite emotional, psychological, logistical, and financial stress, primary care clinicians responded to the challenges that COVID-19 presented and continued to provide essential health services to their communities. As the lead federal agency for primary care research, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) identified a need to engage and support primary care in responding to COVID-19. AHRQ initiated a learning community from December 2020-November 2021 to connect professionals and organizations that support primary care practices and clinicians. The learning community provided a forum for participants to share learning and peer support, better understand the stressors and challenges confronting practices, ascertain needs, and identify promising solutions in response to the pandemic. We identified challenges, responses, and innovations that emerged through learning community engagement, information sharing, and dialog. We categorized these across 5 domains that reflect core areas integral to primary care delivery: patient-centeredness, clinician and practice, systems and infrastructure, and community and public health; health equity was crosscutting across all domains. The engagement of the community to identify real-time response and innovation in the context of a global pandemic has provided valuable insights to inform future research and policy, improve primary care delivery, and ensure that the community is better prepared to respond and contribute to ongoing and future health challenges. Key words: primary care; primary care research; health system performance; health equity; COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2, BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically disrupted health care systems and delivery. (1-3) While much of the attention focused initially on high-acuity, critical care responses, primary care's role in providing necessary [...]

Primary care research is central to the successful transformation of care delivery, providing the crucial evidence to overcome the longstanding and widespread threats and challenges to the realization of primary care's full potential. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), as the federal agency specifically charged with conducting and supporting primary care research, plays a pivotal role in supporting the research and generating the evidence needed to advance primary care. Drawing upon decades of AHRQ-supported research studies, extensive stakeholder consultation, and a Primary Care Research Summit held in fall 2020, we discuss the primary care research central to successful primary care transformation and for realizing the vision of a high-performing US health system to effectively serve all Americans and their communities while advancing health equity. Realizing the potential of primary care will require wise investments in primary care research. Newly generated evidence needs to be rapidly incorporated into the design of the delivery system, clinical care, and community interventions. Investments in evidence-informed primary care redesign can catalyze progress to achieving the quintuple aim-improved health outcomes, increased value, better patient and clinician experience, and health equity. Primary care research can provide the evidence to help stem the twin epidemics of clinician burnout and lack of trust in the health system. Actualizing this vision will require a concerted and coordinated effort by policy makers, researchers, clinicians, and community members and a commitment to ensuring people and communities have ready access to primary care. Ann Fam Med 2022;20:170-174. https://doi.org/10.1370/afm.2788 Appeared as Annals 'Online First' article., A VISION OF THE FUTURE It is 2032. After a near-death experience, primary care is thriving and has achieved its rightful place at the center of the US health system. [...]

This study examined the physical and mental health of 126,685 males and females age 65 or over, with and without cancer that completed a Medicare Health Outcomes Survey (MHOS) between 1998-2002. Cancer information was ascertained through the National Cancer Institute's (NCI's) Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) program and linked to MHOS data. Results indicated that across most cancer types, cancer patients reported significantly more comorbid conditions and poorer physical and mental health compared with patients without cancer. Negative associations were most pronounced in those with two or more comorbidities and in those diagnosed with cancer within the past year.