Developing and Sustaining State-Based Infrastructure To Support Primary Care Quality Improvement

Developing a state-based healthcare extension program to support quality improvement in primary care practices is challenging work. It requires establishing and maintaining broad partnerships, developing a governing and workgroup structure to carry out the work, building and maintaining a network of practices, designing and delivering quality improvement supports, and finding ongoing funding sources to sustain the effort over time. This guide aims to help by sharing what has been learned across the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s EvidenceNOW initiative. We recognize that future healthcare extension efforts will likely have a different focus and will identify new approaches and best practices to continue to build the knowledge base. However, we hope that readers can find information they find useful, adapt it as needed, apply it in their work, and then in turn share their own insights about what they have learned.