ArticleAnnals of family medicine2025
Family Physicians in Focused Practice in Ontario, Canada: A Population-Level Study of Trends From 1993/1994 Through 2021/2022.
Article in Annals of family medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- Article
- Patient partnership in primary health care systems of the future: a structured priority setting exercise.Research involvement and engagement · 2026Article
- Enhancing support for family physician anesthetists in Canada.Canadian journal of anaesthesia = Journal canadien d'anesthesie · 2026Article
- Regional and medical school variation in family medicine specialization choice: Canadian medical graduates from 2000 to 2023.Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien · 2026Article
- Why Are Family Physicians Leaving Comprehensive Care? A Qualitative Study on Retention in Ontario.Annals of family medicine · 2026Article
- What will we lose if antepartum, intrapartum, and postpartum care becomes a focused practice?Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien · 2026Article
- Finding safe harbour: reassessing 9 principles of family medicine in difficult times: Part 1 of the 10-part series, "Foundations for tomorrow".Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien · 2026Article
- Beyond headcount: four dimensions of Canada's primary care access crisis and a three-level agenda for action.Frontiers in medicine · 2025Article
- Operationalizing the Quintuple Aim of Health System Improvement Through Equity-Oriented Health Care.Health services insights · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeAn adequate supply of family physicians who deliver comprehensive care is critical for addressing evolving population health needs, fostering health equity, and ensuring a cost-effective health system. Little is known about current trends of family physicians choosing focused practice and concurrent changes in comprehensive family physician numbers relative to population growth.
methodsWe conducted a repeated cross-sectional population-based study using administrative data to understand sex-stratified trends in focused practice from 1993/1994 through 2021/2022 in Ontario, Canada, accounting for population growth. For each fiscal year, we identified all active family physicians and classified them by practice type, leveraging a previously published algorithm on comprehensiveness.
resultsThe proportion of family physicians in focused practice increased from 7.7% (856/11,103) in 1993/1994 to 19.2% (3,351/17,413) in 2021/2022. The 3 most prevalent focused practice types at the end of the study period were emergency (37.0%), hospitalist (26.5%), and addiction (8.3%) medicine. A greater proportion of focused practice physicians were male (60.1%) vs female (39.9%) in 2021/2022. Over the study period, the number of family physicians increased from 104 to 118 per 100,000; however, the number of comprehensive family physicians decreased from 71 to 64 per 100,000. Of the additional 6,310 family physicians who entered the workforce, 39.5% (2,495/6,310) were in focused practice.
conclusionsOver the study period, there was a decrease in the percentage of comprehensive family physicians and a substantial increase in family physicians pursuing focused practice, particularly in emergency and hospitalist medicine. Research and policy work is needed to understand and address the complex factors driving these trends.
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