Primary Care can Save 50,000 lives in the United States

If the United States reached the highest level of primary care, nearly 50,000 fewer deaths and more than 435,000 fewer hospitalizations would occur, according to a recent report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and article by Frederik Joelving of Reuters.

Chiang-Hua Chang, a researcher at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice in Lebanon, New Hampshire, said, "areas with more primary care are more likely to have better outcomes" and "things like better organization or coordination of care might also play a role" in a patient's outcome.