Grant: Project Grant

Experts agree that primary care clinics where family doctors work in teams with other health professionals like nurses and social workers are an effective way to give older patients the care that they need. Teams, however, come in different shapes and sizes and it is not clear how these differences might affect patients' quality of care or their need for hospital services. Given the large health policy investments promoting primary care for the aging population, it is important that we better understand the ways in which team-based clinics can best support the care of older persons. This project will breakdown the complex links between primary care teams, quality of primary care, such as access, continuity and coordination of care, and hospital use in older persons. We will use data from one of Statistics Canada's health surveys and Quebec government data on patient's use of hospital and other medical services and focus on persons 65 years old and older with health conditions that are considered best managed through high-quality primary care. Our team will use advanced methods in statistics to describe the different types of teams and which might perform better in improving quality of care and hospital use in older patients. Overall, this project will help health professionals and policy makers understand what features of team-based primary care gives the best outcomes in terms of access, continuity and coordination while also avoiding the ED and hospital when not necessary. This will help implement solutions to better organize and plan the services needed to best care for our growing aging population.