Observational studyBMC family practice2014
Waiting to see the specialist: patient and provider characteristics of wait times from primary to specialty care.
Observational study in BMC family practice, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 56 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
56 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A Bibliometric Analysis and Visualization of Decision Support Systems for Healthcare Referral Strategies.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Pooled it
- A Narrative Review of the Factors Impacting Solid Organ Transplant Recipient Participation in Skin Cancer Screening.The Australasian journal of dermatology · 2026Review
- Examination of Plastic Surgery Clinical Questions and Responses via an Electronic Consultation (eConsult) Service.Plastic surgery (Oakville, Ont.) · 2026Article
- Emergency Department Visits, Hospital Admissions, and Wait Times for Patients With Urologic Conditions.JAMA network open · 2026Article
- Reducing wait times for hospital-based outpatient mental healthcare: what works?BMJ open quality · 2026Article
- Constructing the program theory: an implementation science approach to understanding a successful interdisciplinary team-based model of rheumatology care.Implementation science communications · 2026Article
- GastroGPT Pioneering Specialized AI in Gastroenterology: Strengths, Pitfalls, and the Road to Clinical Integration.JGH open : an open access journal of gastroenterology and hepatology · 2025Article
- REFERRAL WAIT TIME AND ILLNESS SEVERITY OF PATIENTS WITH NONCOMMUNICABLE DISEASES REFERRED TO SPECIALIST CLINICS OF A TERTIARY HEALTHCARE CENTRE IN SOUTH-WEST NIGERIA.Annals of Ibadan postgraduate medicine · 2025Article
- What About Nights, Weekends, and Wait Times? Adding an On-Demand Facilitated Telemedicine Buprenorphine Component to a Community-Based Peer Support Outreach Program.Substance use & addiction journal · 2025Article
- Telemedicine in Action: Improving Perceived Healthcare Accessibility in Rural China.Health care science · 2025Article
- Article
- GastroGPT: Development and controlled testing of a proof-of-concept customized clinical language model.Endoscopy international open · 2025Article
- A scoping review of triage approaches for the referral of patients with suspected inflammatory arthritis, from primary to rheumatology care.Rheumatology international · 2024Article
- Article
- Assessing Quality of Referrals to a Community-Based Chronic Pain Clinic.Canadian journal of pain = Revue canadienne de la douleur · 2024Article
- Factors Affecting Waiting Time of Patients Referred to Specialty Clinics from a Family Medicine Clinic in a Tertiary Government Hospital: A Retrospective Chart Review.Acta medica Philippina · 2024Article
- Assessments of and Attitudes towards Specialist Teleconsultations among Nephrology and Posttransplant Outpatients during the COVID-19 Pandemic.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Challenges and impacts from wait times for specialist care identified by primary care providers: Results from the MAAP study cross-sectional survey.Healthcare management forum · 2023Article
- E-Mental Health Services in Canada: Can They Close the Access Gap?Healthcare policy = Politiques de sante · 2023Article
- Psychiatric consultation: Characteristics, satisfaction, and perceived opportunities among referrers to a 1-time service.Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundWait times are an important measure of access to various health care sectors and from a patient's perspective include several stages in their care. While mechanisms to improve wait times from specialty care have been developed across Canada, little is known about wait times from primary to specialty care. Our objectives were to calculate the wait times from when a referral is made by a family physician (FP) to when a patient sees a specialist physician and examine patient and provider factors related to these wait times.
methodsOur study used the Electronic Medical Record Administrative data Linked Database (EMRALD) which is a linkage of FP electronic medical record (EMR) data to the Ontario, Canada administrative data. The EMR referral date was linked to the administrative physician claims date to calculate the wait times. Patient age, sex, socioeconomic status, comorbidity and FP continuity of care and physician age, sex, practice location, practice size and participation in a primary care delivery model were examined with respect to wait times.
resultsThe median waits from medical specialists ranged from 39 to 76 days and for surgical specialists from 33 days to 66 days. With a few exceptions, patient factors were not associated with wait times from primary care to specialty care. Similarly physician factors were not consistently associated with wait times, except for FP practice location and size.
conclusionsActual wait times for a referral from a FP to seeing a specialist physician are longer than those reported by physician surveys. Wait times from primary to specialty care need to be included in the calculation of surgical and diagnostic wait time benchmarks in Canada.
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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.