Measuring valued output in primary care: challenges and reconciliation.

Measures of primary care outputs can strengthen clinical and health services research, but such measures have yet to be developed and validated for most primary care outputs. The use of these measures in outcome evaluations of interventions in healthcare would enhance the interpretation of intervention effects. Validated measures are also needed to tap the full potential of advanced methods of data-analysis in clinical and health services research. Better understanding of the primary care outputs may also help to mitigate broader challenges in healthcare systems.