ARTICLE The Australian Experiment: How Primary Health Care Organizations Supported the Evolution of a Primary Health Care System

Primary health care in Australia has undergone 2 decades of change. Starting with a vision for a na-tional health strategy with general practice at its core, Australia established local meso-level primary health care organizations—Divisions of General Practice—moving from focus on individual practitio-ners to a professional collective local voice. The article identifies how these meso-level organizations have helped the Australian primary health care system evolve by supporting the roll-out of initiatives including national practice accreditation, a focus on quality improvement, expansion of multidisciplinary teams into general practice, regional inte-gration, information technology adoption, and improved access to care. Nevertheless, there are still challenges to ensuring equitable access and the supply and distribution of a primary care workforce, addressing the increasing rates of chronic disease and obesity, and overcoming the fragmentation of funding and accountability in the Australian system. (J Am Board Fam Med 2012;25:S18–26.