The effect of family physician team processes on chronic disease management performance from a structural network perspective.

Objective: The family physician team has become the core carrier for delivery primary health care in China. This study aimed to measure the effect of the network structural characteristics of family physician team processes on health performance. Strategic recommendations for optimizing the family physician team processes with a view to improving performance were presented.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted from October to December 2021 in Qianjiang in Hubei Province and Changsha in Hunan Province. Task performance, contextual performance, social networks, and sociodemographic characteristics were collected. Social network analysis was conducted to calculate density and centralization, then hierarchical linear regression analysis was employed to explore the relationship between the network structural characteristics of family physician team processes and performance.

Results: In total, 88 family physician teams attended in this investigation. The transition processes of family physician team showed a distinctive low density (0.272 ± 0.112), high centralization (0.866 ± 0.197) network structure. For family physician team, the density of action processes significantly and positively affected task performance (B = 0.600, P < 0.05); the centralization of action processes positively affected task performance (B = 0.604, P < 0.01); the density of action processes positively affected contextual performance (B = 0.545, P < 0.01); the density of interpersonal processes significantly and positively affected contextual performance (B = 0.326, P < 0.05).

Conclusion: The network density and centralization of family physician team processes have positive effects on chronic disease management performance. The results from this study help to enhance our conceptual understanding of social network and its implications for team-dynamics. Optimizing family physician team processes is an effective way to strengthen the construction of family physician team and promote the quality and efficiency of family physician-contracted service. It is recommended to strengthen the management of team processes, enhance the internal collaboration mechanism, and optimize the centralized network structure of family physician team.