Patients report high information coordination between rostered primary care physicians and specialists: A cross-sectional study

PLoS One. 2024 Aug 22;19(8):e0307611. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0307611. eCollection 2024.

Abstract

Our study aimed to describe patient experience of information coordination between their primary care physician and specialists and to examine the associations between their experience and their personal and primary care characteristics. We conducted a cross-sectional study of Ontario residents rostered to a primary care physician and visited a specialist physician in the previous 12 months by linking population-based health administrative data to the Health Care Experience Survey collected between 2013 and 2020. We described respondents' sociodemographic and health care utilization characteristics and their experience of information coordination between their primary care physician and specialists. We measured the adjusted association between patient-reported measures of information coordination before and after respondents received care from a specialist physician and their type of primary care model. 1,460 out 20,422 (weighted 7.5%) of the respondents reported that their specialist physician did not have basic medical information about their visit from their primary care physician in the previous 12 months. 2,298 out of 16,442 (weighted 14.9%) of the respondents reported that their primary care physician seemed uninformed about the care they received from the specialist. Females, younger individuals, those with a college or undergraduate level of education, and users of walk-in clinics had a higher likelihood of reporting a lack of information coordination between the primary care and specialist physicians. Only respondents rostered to an enhanced fee-for-service model had a higher odds of reporting that the specialist physician did not have basic medical information about their visit compared to those rostered to a Family Health Team (OR 1.22, 95% Cl 1.12-1.40). We found no significant association between respondent's type of primary care model and that their primary care physician was uninformed about the care received from the specialist physician. In this population-based health study, respondents reported high information coordination between their primary care physician and specialists. Except for respondents rostered to an enhanced fee-for-service model of care, we did not find any difference in information coordination across other primary care models.

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Cross-Sectional Studies
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Ontario
  • Physicians, Primary Care* / statistics & numerical data
  • Primary Health Care / statistics & numerical data
  • Specialization / statistics & numerical data
  • Young Adult

Grants and funding

The work was originally part of a thesis internally funded by operating funds from St. Joseph’s Centre for Integrated Care that is funded by St. Joseph’s Health System (https://sjhs.ca/), and the Schlegel Chair in Clinical Epidemiology and Aging, McMaster University. There is no grant funding number available.