East Asia is testing four different ways to handle chronic disease in primary care

The World Bank collected case studies from countries across East Asia and the Pacific that are experimenting with new approaches to primary health care in the face of rising chronic disease. The four approaches being tested are: adding more health services and staff, measuring quality, paying providers based on results, and getting patients to actually seek care.

Chronic disease is becoming the dominant health problem in wealthy and middle-income countries, but primary care systems were built for acute illness. These case studies show how different countries are trying to restructure their basic care delivery without waiting for a global consensus on the right approach. What matters is that governments are experimenting with different combinations of supply, measurement, incentives, and demand — the variation tells you what might actually work, and what fails.