Identification of physicians providing comprehensive primary care in Ontario: a retrospective analysis using linked administrative data.

Identification of physicians providing comprehensive primary care in Ontario: a retrospective analysis using linked administrative data. CMAJ Open. 2017 Dec 19;5(4):E856-E863 Authors: Schultz SE, Glazier RH Abstract BACKGROUND: Given the changing landscape of primary care, there may be fewer primary care physicians available to provide a broad range of services to patients of all age groups and health conditions. We sought to identify physicians with comprehensive primary care practices in Ontario using administrative data, investigating how many and what proportion of primary care physicians provided comprehensive primary care and how this changed over time. METHODS: We identified the pool of active primary care physicians in linked population-based databases for Ontario from 1992/93 to 2014/15. After excluding those who saw patients fewer than 44 days per year, we identified physicians as providing comprehensive care if more than half of their services were for core primary care and if these services fell into at least 7 of 22 activity areas. Physicians with 50% or less of their services for core primary care but with more than 50% in a single location or type of service were identified as being in focused practice. RESULTS: In 2014/15, there were 12 891 physicians in the primary care pool: 1254 (9.7%) worked fewer than 44 days per year, 1619 (12.6%) were in focused practice, and 1009 (7.8%) could not be classifie...
Source: cmaj - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: CMAJ Open Source Type: research