Cardiovascular Disease Prevention and Control: Team-Based Care (TBC) to Improve Blood Pressure Control

Research Gaps

What are Research Gaps?

With every Community Guide review, the review team and Community Preventive Services Task Force attempt to address key questions of what interventions work, for whom, under what conditions, and at what cost. Lack of sufficient information often leaves one or more of these questions unanswered. The Community Guide refers to these as "research gaps." Research gaps can be pulled together as a narrative or in the form of a basic set of questions to inform a research agenda for those in the field.

Identified Research Gaps

• Only a few of the included studies used large sample sizes. More studies are needed to assess the effectiveness of team-based care when it is used for large populations.
• More information is needed about the effectiveness of team-based care for patients from low socioeconomic status (SES) groups and racial and ethnic groups other than Whites and African-Americans.
• There were few analyses to determine the influence of factors such as race, ethnicity, income, education level and insurance status on the effectiveness of team-based care. More research on these factors in team-based care studies is needed.
• Only a few studies evaluated teams including members besides primary care providers, nurses and pharmacists, such as community health workers and dietitians. More research is needed on differences in effectiveness when different types of professionals are on the team.
• More information is needed about communication within teams, including how (e.g., face-to-face, telephone, e-mail, text message) and how often (e.g., weekly, monthly) patients and providers should communicate with each other.
• The role of technology in facilitating team-based care needs to be examined extensively.
• More information is needed about patient-centered outcomes such as satisfaction with care and adherence to healthy behaviors (e.g. increased physical activity).
• Long-term studies are needed to understand the sustainability of benefits from team-based care.
• Very limited information is available about reimbursement mechanisms for providers, including the role of incentives. Research is needed to assess the types and effectiveness of different mechanisms in use.