Determining the influence of the primary and specialist network of care on patient and system outcomes among patients with a new diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)

Table 2 Physician network characteristics

Number of patients		All	Family Physician	Specialist	Standardized difference
Number of patients		N = 450,837	N = 425,070	N = 25,767
Outpatient Visits for 5 years	1–5	4,729 (1.0%)	2,433 (0.6%)	2,296 (8.9%)	0.64
	6–10	37,773 (8.4%)	32,899 (7.7%)	4,874 (18.9%)
	11–20	88,456 (19.6%)	81,544 (19.2%)	6,912 (26.8%)
	20 +	319,879 (71.0%)	308,194 (72.5%)	11,685 (45.3%)
Mean Proportion of FP or SP visits/total visits			86.4%	13.6%
Usual provider of care index (UPCI)	Mean ± SD	0.59 ± 0.22	0.60 ± 0.22	0.39 ± 0.18	1.01
Usual provider of care index (UPCI)	Median (IQR)	0.59 (0.41–0.77)	0.60 (0.43–0.78)	0.36 (0.26–0.50)	1.02
Continuity of care index (COCI)	Mean ± SD	0.51 ± 0.26	0.52 ± 0.26	0.51 ± 0.29	0.02
Continuity of care index (COCI)	Median (IQR)	0.49 (0.30–0.73)	0.49 (0.30–0.73)	0.45 (0.27–0.74)	0.04
Sequential continuity of care index (SECONI)	Mean ± SD	0.64 ± 0.23	0.64 ± 0.22	0.68 ± 0.25	0.16
Sequential continuity of care index (SECONI)	Median (IQR)	0.67 (0.50–0.82)	0.67 (0.45–0.81)	0.71 (0.50–0.87)	0.18
High or low COCI (based on median cutoff)	High COCI	223,755 (49.6%)	212,202 (49.9%)	11,553 (44.8%)	0.1
High or low COCI (based on median cutoff)	Low COCI	227,082 (50.4%)	212,868 (50.1%)	14,214 (55.2%)
Distance to Usual provider(km)	Mean ± SD	17.55 ± 56.51	17.08 ± 55.12	25.32 ± 75.45	0.12
Distance to Usual provider(km)	Median (IQR)	5 (2–14)	5 (2–14)	6 (3–18)	0.21

Note: FP and Specialist categories are based on the highest proportion of visits to each provider. Continuity of Care Measures were determined using billing codes for any outpatient physician visits (including FP and specialty care visits) over the 5-year observation window and excluding participants who had few visits (< = 5).Usual Provider Care (UPCI): UPCI reflects the concentration of care with a single provider or group of providers across time. UPC is measured by using the highest number of visits to a single practitioner or a group of practitioner and then divided by the total number of visits. Bice-Boxerman’s Concentration of Care Index (COCI): This measure captures the care across different providers as well as the care coordination back to the family physician. Sequential Continuity of Care (SECONI): SECONI considers the order of the visits and captures the number of handoffs between providers

ISSN: 1472-6963