Balasubramanian Appointed to National Committee Scoring Health of Primary Care in the United States

Bijal Balasubramanian, MBBS, PhD, Professor and Dallas Campus Dean of The University of Texas Health Science Center Houston School of Public Health and co-Director of the UTHealth Houston Institute for Implementation Science was recently appointed to the “Health of Primary Care Scorecard” committee. Alongside her peers, Balasubramanian will lend her expertise to building the foundation of what the future of quality primary care will look like across the country.

The Milbank Memorial Fund and The Physicians Foundation are partnering with the Robert Graham Center to develop an annual “Health of Primary Care Scorecard” in response to The National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine’s Committee Report on Implementing High-Quality Primary Care, which highlighted that primary care is critical to achieving optimal health outcomes equitably. Yet, it faces chronic underinvestment, has no federal coordinating capacity, no dedicated research support, and a shrinking workforce pipeline.

“This is an exciting opportunity to help shape the future of primary health care in the nation,” said Balasubramanian, “Primary care is the foundation of our health care system, so we must be intentional in measuring our progress in creating and maintaining high-quality primary care for all.”

Appointees include nationally renowned experts from the primary health care community representing clinicians, researchers, policy makers, and community leaders.

Members of the committee will engage two principal roles: (1) advise on the selection and analysis of measures to be included in the annual scorecard and (2) provide feedback on a draft report prepared by the Robert Graham Center analytics and research team.

Balasubramanian’s appointment to the “Health of Primary Care Scorecard” committee is in recognition of her research expertise in improving primary health care. She has published extensively on approaches to enhancing primary care capacity to provide high-quality, whole person care.   

For more about the Milbank Memorial Fund Health of Primary Care Scorecard project, visit the website milbank.org.