Population-Based Measurement of Primary Care to Study Variations in Care Received by the Elderly. Executive Summary

摘要

A population-based approach was used (1) to develop measures of primary care from routinely collected administrative data and (2) to examine factors associated with variation in patterns of ambulatory care at the population level. Two measures of primary care were developed: a measure of longitudinality (the degree to which a single physician is used when an individual seeks medical care) and a measure of comprehensiveness (the extent to which an individual receives a complete set of services). The results suggest that the distribution of longitudinality and comprehensiveness in the population is not random. Variation in these patterns of ambulatory care appears to be related both to personal characteristics of patients and to the primary care orientation of the medical care they receive, such as the generalist/specialist orientation of services. The study has demonstrated the usefulness of a population-based approach to measurement of primary care.