ArticleBMC family practice2018
Effect of administrative information on visit rate of frequent attenders in primary health care: ten-year follow-up study.
Article in BMC family practice, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
What it found
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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
7 citing papers in PubMed, 8 citations in OpenAlex.
- Changes in office-hours doctor and nurse consultations: six-year register-based follow-up cohort study in the public primary health care of City of Vantaa, Finland.International journal of circumpolar health · 2025Article
- Characteristics of patients with frequent contact with general practice: a retrospective study.BJGP open · 2025Article
- Changes in location and number of nurse consultations as the supply of general practitioners decreases in primary health care: six-year register-based follow-up cohort study in the city of Vantaa, Finland.Scandinavian journal of primary health care · 2024Article
- Development of office-hours use of primary health centers in the early years of the 21International journal of circumpolar health · 2022Observational
- Do electronic reminders alter recorded diagnoses in primary care office-hours practices of health centers: A register-based study in a Finnish city.SAGE open medicine · 2021Article
- A Primary Care Emergency Service Reduction Did Not Increase Office-Hour Service Use: A Longitudinal Follow-up Study.Journal of primary care & community healthObservational
- How GPs can Recognize Persistent Frequent Attenders at Finnish Primary Health Care Using Electronic Patient Records.Journal of primary care & community healthArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundFrequent attenders (FAs) use a disproportionately large share of the resources of general practitioners (GPs) working in primary healthcare centres. The aim of this study was to estimate the proportion of FAs among all patients in the primary health care centres of a medium-sized city in Finland, and to examine whether providing GPs with administrative information about their frequent attenders (names and numbers of visits per year) can reduce the number of FAs and the frequency of their visits.
methodsStatistic data on all GP visits (n = 1.8 million) to 11 public healthcare centres in one city were collected from the electronic patient records covering the period from 2001 to 2010. A FA-patient was defined as a person who made10 or more visits to GPs during one year. The baseline situation in 2001 was compared with the situation in 2006 after administrative information had been provided three times to all GPs working in the healthcare centres. Poisson's regression analysis was used, and FA numbers and consultation rates in the years 2002-2005 were compared with the year 2006; figures for 2006 were also compared with those for the follow-up period 2007-2010.
resultsDuring the years 2001-2006, the proportion of visits of FA-patients fell overall from 9.1 to 8.5%, a decline of 0.6% (p < 0.0001). This reduction was equivalent to an annual work load of two GPs in the study center. The proportion of visits of FA patients increased again in the follow-up period (2007-2010), when administrative information was no longer provided.
conclusionWhen GPs are provided with information on the number and names of their FA-patients, the annual rate of FA visits to GPs drops significantly. The method is simple and repeatable. However, without a control group of GPs who have not received such information, it is impossible to assess if the intervention was the only circumstance affecting the reduction in FA consultation rates.
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