Team-based care
Trained non-physician health workers can help more patients get the care they need and clinics run more smoothly.
The challenge
The solution
The impact
Multidisciplinary teams provide better routine care for more people—and let doctors focus on complex cases, improving primary health care for everyone.
In depth
How team-based care saves lives
Imagine that you’re a physician in a busy clinic that serves hundreds of patients a day. You’d have only 3 or 4 minutes with each patient—time to take blood pressure, but not much else.
With team-based care, non-physician health workers— such as nurses, community health workers, and pharmacists—take on routine but time-consuming tasks like measuring blood pressure, refilling prescriptions, counseling, and initiating treatment.
This small shift in responsibilities can make a big difference:
- More health workers are available to support follow-up visits.
- Patients can receive regular follow-ups more easily, at a lower level of care—like a local primary health care clinic—where specialized providers may not always be present
- Doctors are freed up to provide supervision and focus on complex cases.
- Clinics run more smoothly, improving outcomes for everyone seeking care, not just people living with high blood pressure.
How we support team-based care
We work with our partners to make team-based care a part of their blood pressure management programs. We support:
- Simple, standard treatment protocols, which can make it possible for non-specialized staff to treat hypertension effectively.
- Training in blood pressure management for non-physicians, including on-demand training on their smartphones, supportive supervision and mentoring.
- Validated digital blood pressure devices, which make it easy to take blood pressure accurately, every time.
- Digital health records that can travel with the patient to any provider they choose.
- Telemedicine services so nonphysician health workers can receive real time support from specialists when needed.
