Table 3:

Characteristics of practices across primary care funding models

Characteristic^*	Primary care model^†
Characteristic^*	Salaried	Fee for service	New capitation	Established capitation
Patient profile	n = 856	n = 849	n = 827	n = 752
Age, yr, mean^‡	43.7	47.9	48.4	50.0
Female, %^‡	68.0	59.0	58.9	54.2
Insured in Ontario, %	95.3	99.8	99.9	100.0
> 1 visit in previous year, %^‡	87.0	84.8	80.0	76.2
Chronic diseases
No. of chronic diseases per patient, mean^‡	0.33	0.35	0.40	0.44
Hypertension, %^§	19.1	21.0	24.5	24.6
Diabetes mellitus, %	7.8	6.6	7.6	8.6
Coronary artery disease, %^§	4.8	5.4	6.9	8.8
Congestive heart failure, %	0.8	1.4	1.4	2.0
≥ 1 chronic disease, %^§	23.2	25.2	28.6	29.6
Contextual factor	n = 35	n = 35	n = 35	n = 32
< 10 km to hospital, %	71.4	85.3	94.1	86.7
Rurality index^¶ ≥ 4, %^§	68.6	51.4	85.7	87.5
Family physician profile	n = 108	n = 58	n = 80	n = 42
No. of years since graduation, mean^‡	19.2	22.3	22.6	28.5
Presence of ≥ 1 female family physician,^** %^‡	85.3	48.5	48.6	25.0
Foreign trained, %^††	9.3	17.2	2.5	14.3
College of Family Physicians of Canada certification, %	79.4	84.5	77.9	67.5
Organizational structure	n = 35	n = 35	n = 35	n = 32
No. of nurses per FTE family physician, mean^‡	0.9	0.2	0.6	0.7
Panel size < 1600 patients per FTE family physician, %^‡	84.8	48.4	58.1	42.9
Booking interval for routine visit, min, mean^‡	24.8	12.9	13.9	13.6
Staffing
Solo practice, %^§	0	25.7	37.1	37.5
Presence of nurse-practitioner(s), %^‡	100.0	8.6	31.0	18.8
No. of nurses, mean^‡	2.7	0.6	2.0	1.1
Information technology^‡‡
Electronic health records, %^§	28.6	14.3	57.1	43.8
Electronic system for patient scheduling, %^§	97.1	62.9	71.4	68.8
Electronic reminder system for recommended patient care (e.g., screening), %^††	25.7	14.3	45.7	28.1
Electronic interface to external laboratory/diagnostic imaging, %^§	45.7	14.3	51.4	40.6

Note: CI = confidence interval, FTE = full-time equivalent.
↵* Characteristics shown were obtained from chart data, provider survey data and organizational survey data and used in the analyses.
↵† The four models are known by their financing arrangement: salaried (community health centre), fee for service (fee-for-service practices), new capitation model (family health networks) and established capitation model (health services organizations). See Table 1 for more information.
↵‡ Characteristic was significantly different (p < 0.001) across the models; χ² or F test (analysis of variance [ANOVA]), as appropriate.
↵§ Characteristic is significantly different (p < 0.01) across the models; χ² or F test (ANOVA), as appropriate.
↵¶ Rurality index is based on the Rurality Index of Ontario and ranges from 0–100.
↵** The presence of a female family physician could only be determined from the respondents. Since at least 50% of the providers were required to participate, it is likely that some practices in which not all providers participated were wrongly coded as not having a female family physician.
↵†† Characteristic is significantly (p < 0.05) different across the models; χ² test or F test (ANOVA), as appropriate.
↵‡‡ For information technology factors, practices were asked to report whether the practice site had implemented, to any extent, each of the technologies listed.