Observational studyAnnals of family medicine
The Impact of Primary Care Clinic and Family Physician Continuity on Patient Health Outcomes: A Retrospective Analysis From Alberta, Canada.
Observational study in Annals of family medicine. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 37 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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
37 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Association of Advanced Access With Primary Care Performance: A Systematic Review.Annals of family medicine · 2026Pooled it
- The association between team-based model of care characteristics and patient outcomes in community health centres: a systematic review.BMC primary care · 2026Pooled it
- Cost savings from primary care clinic continuity among patients with chronic disease in Alberta, Canada: a retrospective population-level cross-sectional study.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2026Article
- Continuity of care measurement across health systems: UK and US insights for global primary care.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2026Article
- Racial and Social Disparities in Primary Healthcare Access and Wait Times in Canada: A Cross-Sectional Study.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2026Article
- Continuity of Care as Diagnostic Infrastructure.Journal of evaluation in clinical practice · 2026Article
- Perceptions and use of publicly funded episodic virtual care: Cross-sectional survey data from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien · 2026Article
- Article
- Primary Care Attachment and Long-Term Mortality in Burn Survivors: A Population-Based Cohort Study.Journal of burn care & research : official publication of the American Burn Association · 2026Article
- Coordinated Primary-Care Access in Rural and Suburban Alberta, with a Contextual Comparison to Rural Wyoming: A Systematic Review and Narrative Synthesis of Community Pharmacist-Family Physician Care Models.Pharmacy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Role of family medicine on health systems in the Americas: scoping review.Family medicine and community health · 2026Article
- Proposed ICD-10 framework for identifying emergency department visits that may be impacted by community pharmacy care clinics.International journal of clinical pharmacy · 2026Article
- Primary care continuity and breast cancer survival: a retrospective cohort study.Cancer causes & control : CCC · 2026Article
- Article
- Impact of grassroots development of interprofessional team-based practices: Retrospective matched cohort study using ICES data.Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien · 2026Article
- Association between continuity of care and detection of hypertension in Dutch general practice: a 10-year cohort study.BMJ open · 2026Article
- Aligning the policy-created gardens of Canadian primary health care: Toward a new access landscape.Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien · 2026Article
- Empowering Older Patients in Advance Care Planning: Evaluating MyCare™ as a Decision Support Tool.Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2026Article
- Primary care unattachment: impact on mortality, hospitalizations and costs.Health affairs scholar · 2026Article
- Effect of Continuity of Care on Emergency Care and Hospital Admissions Among Patients Receiving Home-Based Care: A Population-Based Cohort Study.Annals of family medicine · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeContinuity of care is broadly associated with better patient health outcomes. The relative contributions of continuity with an individual physician and with a practice, however, have not generally been distinguished. This retrospective observational study examined the impact of continuity of care for patients seen at their main clinic but by different family physicians.
methodsWe analyzed linked health administrative data from 2015-2018 from Alberta, Canada to explore the association of physician and clinic continuity with rates of emergency department (ED) visits and hospitalizations across varying levels of patient complexity. Physician continuity was calculated using the known provider of care index and clinic continuity with an analogous measure. We developed zero-inflated negative binomial models to assess the association of each with all-cause ED visits and hospitalizations.
resultsHigh physician continuity was associated with lower ED use across all levels of patient complexity and with fewer hospitalizations for highly complex patients. Broadly, no (0%) clinic continuity was associated with increased use and complete (100%) clinic continuity with decreased use, with the largest effect seen for the most complex patients. Levels of clinic continuity between 1% and 50% were generally associated with slightly higher use, and levels of 51% to 99% with slightly lower use.
conclusionsThe best health care outcomes (measured by ED visits and hospitalizations) are associated with consistently seeing one's own primary family physician or seeing a clinic partner when that physician is unavailable. The effect of partial clinic continuity appears complex and requires additional research. These results provide some reassurance for part-time and shared practices, and guidance for primary care workforce policy makers.
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