Table 2

Primary care studies in which organisational aspects were assessed

Reference	Aim and setting	Setting and instruments	Organisational aspects reviewed or assessed	Main finding
Example 1: Geboers et al ²⁰	To devise a comprehensive assessment method to measure the quality of organisation in general practice	VIP method structured interview patient questionnaire practice self-report	Medical performance	The information was useful both at a district and practice level. Nearly all practices started improvement projects on the basis of assessment
			Practice organisation
			Data management
			Collaboration
	39 practices in the Netherlands		QI activity
			Patient satisfaction
Example 2: Goni²²	To test whether team working influenced organisational performance in primary health care teams	Team working scale	Team—goals, empowerment, communication, flexibility, recognition and appreciation	Teams are a form of organisational design useful for improving performance
		Data envelopment analysis
		User questionnaire
		Worker questionnaire
	31 primary health care teams in Spain		Organisation—economy, efficiency, perceived quality of service, work satisfaction
Example 3: Crabtree et al ¹⁵	To understand the practice as an organisation and its relationship to the larger community and health system	Semi-structured interviews	Features of community, practice, staff, patients	The complexity of primary care practices is best understood from multiple perspectives
		Note taking by field researchers
		Office documents
	18 practices in the USA	Direct observation of clinical encounters
Example 4: Campion Smith and Riddoch²⁴	To illustrate how one practice approached QI by integrating practice activity such as education, audit, research, clinical effectiveness		Rapid management of urinary tract infection	Proactively combining different agendas such as education, audit, research and clinical effectiveness can facilitate effective quality improvement in general practice
			Establishment of a palliative care register
			Changes to prescribing
	1 UK practice		Establishing a spirometry service for patients with chronic lung disease
			Initiatives to improve patient access