ArticleHealthcare policy = Politiques de sante2012
How many patients should a family physician have? Factors to consider in answering a deceptively simple question.
Article in Healthcare policy = Politiques de sante, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Analysis of Variation in Organizational Definitions of Primary Care Panels: A Systematic Review.JAMA network open · 2022Pooled it
- Exploration of primary care models and timely access to care in New Brunswick (Canada).BMC primary care · 2024Article
- Factors influencing nurse practitioner panel size in team-based primary care: a qualitative case study.BMC primary care · 2024Article
- Article
- Organization of primary care.Primary health care research & development · 2022Review
- Workload and patterns of care in the Timmins Family Health Team in Ontario.Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien · 2021Article
- Changes to telehealth practices in primary care in New Brunswick (Canada): A comparative study pre and during the COVID-19 pandemic.PloS one · 2021Article
- Scheduling models and primary health care quality: a multilevel and cross-sectional study.Revista de saude publica · 2019Article
- Centralized Waiting Lists for Unattached Patients in Primary Care: Learning from an Intervention Implemented in Seven Canadian Provinces.Healthcare policy = Politiques de sante · 2018Article
- Nurse practitioners as primary care providers with their own patient panels and organizational structures: A cross-sectional study.International journal of nursing studies · 2017Article
- The diagnosis of depression and its treatment in Canadian primary care practices: an epidemiological study.CMAJ open · 2014Article
- Patient poverty and workload in primary care: study of prescription drug benefit recipients in community health centres.Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien · 2013Article
- Visit Patterns for Severe Mental Illness with Implementation of Integrated Care: A Pilot Retrospective Cohort Study.AIMS public healthArticle
- Family Physicians Attaching New Patients From Centralized Waiting Lists: A Cross-Sectional Study.Journal of primary care & community healthObservational
- Implementing an Online Instrument to Measure Nurse Practitioner Workload: A Feasibility Study.Journal of primary care & community healthArticle
- Physician and Practice Characteristics Associated with Family Physician Panel Size.Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine : JABFMArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The ratio of patients to physicians has long been used as a tool for measuring and planning healthcare resources in Canada. Some current changes in primary care, such as enrolment of patients with physicians, make this ratio easier to calculate, while others, such as changing practice structure, make it more complex to interpret. Based on information gleaned from a review of the literature, we argue that before panel size can be used as an accountability measure for individual physicians or practices in primary care, we must understand its relationship to quality and outcomes at individual and population levels, as well as the contextual factors that affect it.
Indexed as
Identifiers
23634160PMC3359082What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.