Does the culture of a practice impact the quality of care a patient receives? Research shows it does. It is well known that engaged employees are more productive and have greater job satisfaction. Let's look at how culture can help an organization achieve higher quality care for their patients. According to Merriam-Webster, culture is "the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization". If a practice is solely focused on volume and revenue with no regard for the providers and team, the result is likely a negative culture with burnout and high turnover rates.

Primary Care Providers (PCP) are problem solvers trained to learn as much as they can about the entire human body. As soon as the patient begins to describe their concern, the PCP is processing the information and evaluating possible solutions or treatments. It is often difficult to determine how much time is needed for a visit because they are trained to not just look at a single problem, but the whole person. Value-based care and mandatory quality measures (or risk losing money) have made the primary care visit even more complex. If a provider runs late, patients become irritated and upset but expect the provider to give them the amount of time needed for whatever “oh by the ways” they mention even if it wasn’t included in the reason for visit.