For the past four years, the UBC Department of Family Practice has been conducting a project on Team-based Primary Care Learning Centres (TPCLC) with funding support from the British Columbia Ministry of Health. In July 2025, the project funding was renewed, in recognition of the importance of team-based care to the future of family medicine in the province.
The Future of Primary Care
Team-based primary care is a model of health care delivery where professionals from various fields work in tandem to support a patient’s needs. In addition to family physicians, these teams can include nurses and nurse practitioners, midwives, social workers, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, counsellors, pharmacists, dieticians, and other specialists. Team-based care has significant benefits for patients, care providers, and learners alike. For patients, the collaborative nature of team-based care results in shorter wait times and increased access to a variety of care. For care providers, it means a more supportive and collaborative work environment. For residents, it means a learning experience that is informed by a wider and more varied pool of knowledge, leading to a deeper understanding of patient needs and approaches to care.
The intentions of the TPCLC project are to increase training and clinical capacity within interprofessional team-based primary care models, province-wide; to test alternative models for integrating family practice medical residents into team-based primary care settings; and to build the scaffolding for a comprehensive provincial plan for integrated, collaborative health education and training. As of the end of 2025, the TPCLC project has 16 participating clinics, which has in turn empowered the team-based learning of more than 275 residents, supported by more than 180 preceptors.
Learning as a Team
While integrated interprofessional care teams are beneficial to providers and patients, it takes a different set of skills for a group of talented individuals to learn to function as an effective team. “We know teams that pause and reflect on how they are working together, and can identify areas for learning and change, are more effective. We also know that busy teams sometimes find it hard to come together and reflect,” says Adam Gavarkovs, a Research Associate for UBC Continued Professional Development (CPD), who is cross-appointed with the Department of Family Practice.
Since August 2024, Gavarkovs has been delivering a pilot project that aims to enhance the quality of teamwork in select TPCLCs. “The goal of TPCLC is to enhance resident training opportunities in team-based settings. If the teams themselves are functioning effectively, that’s going to significantly improve the learning experience for the residents, who are not only growing as physicians, but as team-based practitioners,” says Gavarkovs. To support this ongoing work, Gavarkovs and his colleagues, including Dr. Rob Petrella, Head, Department of Family Practice, have received a two-year Insight Development Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
Between January and June 2025, Gavarkovs and the CPD team delivered 90-minute sessions at five TPCLC sites, in which primary care teams reflected on their collective values and strengths, and then identified opportunities for growth. They also set intentions for how to capitalize on these opportunities. “We didn’t come in a priori with planned content or ideas. These were tailored, responsive sessions, that catered to the needs of each care team,” he says. Across teams, discussions centered around clarifying one another’s role on the team, how to leverage each other’s expertise to make decisions as a team, and how to make team meetings more efficient and impactful.
The Secret Ingredient
Gavarkovs says while some teams are very enthusiastic about the reflection process, this may not always be the case. He suggests this difference may be due to the influence of leadership style and the established habits and norms around learning in the workplace. Over all, Gavarkovs emphasized the importance of administrative staff to the success of care teams. “The front office staff see everything. We found that they were often the ‘secret ingredient’ to the team sessions.”
“Healthcare is very complex, and teams are complex,” continues Gavarkovs. “What I’m interested in doing, embedded within the TPCLC project, is supporting team learning. I want to use my research as a vehicle to enhance resident experiences within the TPCLC project. Our next step is to learn why teams are or are not motivated to engage in team learning. This way, we can identify when teams are best primed to engage in learning, and how we can deliver sessions to support them in ways they need most.”
Want to learn more? Read up on some of our featured TPCLC clinics below.
Team-Based Primary Care at St. Luke Family Practice