Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Objective: To determine the nature and range of organizational attributes within primary care sites and their affiliated practice locations. Organizational attributes associated with comprehensive chronic disease care were explored, including practice history, locale, vision and goals, chronic disease management services, and physician and nursing roles. Approach: All primary care sites affiliated with the Eastern Ontario Network of the Canadian Primary Care Sentinel Surveillance Network (CPCSSN) (n=13) were approached for inclusion in the study. Practice locations (m=34) affiliated with these sites that had a participating CPCSSN practitioner were invited to complete a modified "Measuring Organizational Attributes of Primary Health Care Survey" (CIHI, 2013). A response rate of 94% was obtained. Results: Half of the practice locations (n=13) reported to have procedures for assessing the quality of patient care. Methods that were commonly reported to be used included reviewing clinical outcomes, emergency department visits and hospital admissions, and conducting surveys to measure patient satisfaction with care. Only 42.3% (n=11) of practice locations reported that they receive information about the performance of their clinic compared to that of other clinics. With respect to technical resources, 65.4% (n=17) of practice locations reported to have an electronic interface for directly sending prescriptions to pharmacies, whereas only 7.7% (n=2) reported to have an electronic interface for directly sending requisitions to laboratories. Conclusions: This study highlights the heterogeneity in primary care organizational attributes across practice locations and identifies potential opportunities to improve the delivery of primary care services within Ontario, Canada.