Context: Patients with chronic conditions may face fragmented, uncoordinated and, therefore, substandard healthcare. Standardized indicators of quality of care for these patients will help identify areas of excellence and challenge. Canada is participating in an international survey using patient reported outcome measures and patient reported experience measures to provide internationally comparable standardized indicators. Unlike other countries, primary healthcare delivery is different across Canada and the impact this has on research remains unclear.
Objective: The aim of this study was to describe the characteristics of primary healthcare delivery to capture the complexity of health systems across Canada.
Methods: A pan-Canadian working group formed in 2020 from members of the Strategy for Patient-Oriented research Primary and Integrated Health Care Innovation Network. The advisory group conducted a series of virtual conferences and national meetings to help define approaches for the methods of recruitment, data collection, and data dissemination for the international survey. The different site approaches were qualitatively synthesized to form a description of the modalities of primary care delivery across the nation.
Results: Nine out of 13 possible distinct sites have contributed to the study. Initial findings have determined that only a few sites that are currently using electronic medical records (EMR) in primary care are able to consider an automated data collection using EMRs. Other sites will need to use different data collection platforms, online surveys, or multiple methods of contact, such as emails, mail, or phone calls. None of the sites have a complete registry of eligible practices or patients thus they will need to use different methods of engagement and dissemination, such as newsletters, articles, social media, local news, provider learning/education sessions, or podcasting.
Conclusions: Canadian primary care is delivered through a highly heterogenous health systems thus requiring a diversity of methods for participants’ recruitment, and data collection and dissemination. This work provides an opportunity to determine how this diversity can impact national and international primary care research projects. This has important implications for research capacity building with a practice-based data source to evaluate and optimize the health care utilization by primary care patients.