The fundamental goal of health care is to improve the health of the public. Abundant evidence indicates that health care systems built on a solid foundation of primary care deliver more effective, efficient, and equitable care than systems that fail to invest adequately in primary care.

Primary care is endangered in the United States, and confronts major challenges worldwide. The chief external threats consist of the failure to invest an adequate share of the nation’s health care resources in primary care and to assure all people access to primary care. The principal internal threat consists of the failure of primary care clinicians and practice organizations to more nimbly and imaginatively innovate and implement new practice models in response to changing population health needs and the growing clinical demands of primary care practice.

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