Modeling the Paradox of Primary Care

A paradox exists in the outcomes of primary care: despite delivering apparently poorer quality disease care compared to that delivered by specialists, primary care is associated with better population health, lower inequality, and lower cost. Understanding the dynamics that give rise to this paradox could lead to better-informed interventions to promote more patient-centered, holistic, equitable, and cost-effective models of care. In this chapter, we articulate the paradox and how complexity science principles can make sense of its contradictions. We suggest a novel approach to advancing understanding through a participatory group modeling process to build and conduct experiments with an agent-based computational model.