The Next Opportunity for Group-Based Healthcare

By Liz Friedman, CEO & Co-Founder of GPS Group Peer Support

Healthcare does not have to happen with only one patient and one provider at a time. For more than 25 years, the Integrated Center for Group Medical Visits (ICGMV) has been advancing another possibility: bringing people together as part of healthcare itself. Through research, training, innovation, and direct practice, ICGMV works to expand group medical visits as a model of integrated primary care, particularly in communities where disparities and barriers to care remain significant.

That work has a natural connection to what we have spent decades building at GPS Group Peer Support. We both recognize something that traditional one-to-one models can too easily miss: The group itself matters. When people have opportunities to hear from one another, recognize shared experiences, and build connections alongside care, the group becomes more than a way to deliver services efficiently. It becomes part of what makes the experience meaningful.

That shared belief was at the heart of the Integrated Center for Group Medical Visits (ICGMV) 2026 Conference, The Power of Groups that I recently spoke at. I left thinking about how far group-based healthcare has come, and of the enormous opportunity for where it can go next. The question at the center of the conference is also one GPS has spent decades exploring: What actually makes a group work?

Group Care Can Do Something Different

We already have strong models for integrating group medical visits into healthcare. Approaches like group prenatal care have helped demonstrate what becomes possible when healthcare, education, and connection happen together.

We can explain how to manage a chronic illness, navigate recovery, or support health during pregnancy and postpartum. But information alone doesn’t necessarily translate into engagement or change.

People are also navigating fear, isolation, stigma, trauma, uncertainty, and the realities of their lives outside of the exam room. Support groups, like the ones GPS provides, create opportunities for something traditional individual visits cannot always provide – connection with people who understand.

A Strong Curriculum Is Only Part of the Equation

Population-specific curricula are essential. A diabetes group should reflect the realities of living with diabetes. A recovery group needs to understand substance use, stigma, and recovery. A perinatal group needs to reflect the experiences surrounding pregnancy, birth, postpartum mental health, loss, and parenting.

But knowing what to cover is different from knowing how to hold a group.

A clinician can have tremendous subject-matter expertise without formal preparation in group facilitation. Knowing a curriculum doesn’t automatically teach someone how to create psychological safety, respond when difficult emotions emerge, manage participation, listen without immediately advising, or build connection among participants.

These aren’t secondary skills. They are part of what makes the group effective.

At GPS, core facilitation competencies include reflective listening, presence and self-awareness, cultural humility, equitable participation, boundaries, role clarity, and trauma-informed practice. All of these are essential for creating a space where individuals can feel free to share the most vulnerable parts of themselves. 

Where GPS Fits

For more than 25 years, GPS has been developing and refining a structured, trauma-informed group peer support model. We have learned both how to develop curricula for specific populations and how to train people to facilitate groups in ways that support safety, connection, reflection, agency, and mutual support.

We’re already doing this across very different communities, including, most recently, specialized curricula for nurses in recovery and Hispanic and Latino communities. For nurses navigating recovery, that means creating space for experiences such as stigma, fear about professional identity and licensure, the pressures of working in healthcare, and the complicated intersection of being both a caregiver and someone who may need support themselves. For Hispanic and Latino communities, it means going beyond simply translating materials into Spanish to create culturally responsive spaces where language, identity, immigration experiences, family and community relationships, and culturally shaped understandings of mental health and support can be reflected in the conversation. 

The questions, examples, language, and realities change because effective groups need to feel relevant to the people actually sitting in them. What stays consistent is the underlying GPS model: a structured, trauma-informed approach that creates the conditions for people to feel safe enough to speak honestly, listen without judgment or advice, recognize themselves in one another’s experiences, and build connection.

That balance matters. Fidelity does not have to mean rigidity. Core practices can remain consistent while their application responds to different cultures, populations, communities, and settings.

Moving Group-Based Care Forward

The next evolution of group-based healthcare isn’t simply creating more groups. It’s strengthening the infrastructure that helps those groups work. That means pairing strong clinical and population-specific content with strong group facilitation. It means recognizing facilitation as a skill that can be taught, practiced, observed, coached, and strengthened.

I see tremendous opportunity here nationally, and especially in Massachusetts. For healthcare practices exploring group-based care, we have an opportunity to ask a bigger question:

What would it look like to build a group experience specifically for the people you serve, grounded in a structured, trauma-informed model for connection and participation?

That’s a question GPS is excited to explore with healthcare partners. Because the future of group care isn’t only about what happens during the medical visit. It’s also about what becomes possible between people when we create the conditions for connection.

Ready to Build Your Facilitation Skills?

Great group facilitation is a skill you can learn, practice, and strengthen. Join an upcoming GPS Facilitator Training to gain hands-on experience creating trauma-informed spaces where people can connect, be heard, and support one another.

Upcoming Trainings:

GPS Facilitator Training — October 2026 Hybrid Virtual
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Capacitación de Facilitador GPS — Septiembre 2026 Híbrido
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