Grant: Doctoral Research Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

In Canadian hospitals, patients with injuries and conditions requiring physiotherapy receive publicly-funded physiotherapy services. However, outside of hospital patients requiring physiotherapy are only able to access certain physiotherapy services through a patchwork of coverages, or not at all, depending on how the injury was acquired (such as at work, in a collision, or at home), private insurance status, and referrals from specialists. For many traumatic injuries and chronic conditions, outpatient physiotherapy is an integral part of recovery and symptom management through the use of therapeutic exercise and physical modalities. This physiotherapy treatment not only benefits individual patients, but also reduces downstream costs that would be incurred by the Canadian healthcare system if people were not able to recover or have their symptoms managed (such as being re-admitted to hospital or being on pain medication). There are no unified data systems within outpatient physiotherapy in Canada, yet there are sufficient data available within British Columbia's health administrative data holdings and through private clinics and insurers to begin to assess the impact of inequitable access to physiotherapy services by linking these datasets. This study aims to begin to address these issues in outpatient physiotherapy access by leveraging the available administrative data to assess the extent of access to outpatient physiotherapy services for patients with injuries and conditions requiring physiotherapy, and the extent of differing health outcomes in patients who receive access to outpatient physiotherapy versus those who do not. This work will begin to demonstrate the extent of access issues in outpatient physiotherapy in British Columbia and the effects on the health system of these issues, which will provide a basis for further research in this area with the ultimate goal of improving access to outpatient physiotherapy services.