Project 171535

Despite differences in health care system design, all developed countries wrestle with ensuring access to high-quality health services, improving population health, and controlling health care costs. Most societies also prioritize equity in the receipt of needed services and in health outcomes. Researchers and policymakers have shown substantial interest in the ability of primary care-focused health care delivery systems to achieve these goals. Despite existing research describing individual and community characteristics associated with more advanced models of primary care, we know little about the broader implications for the health care system, specifically the impacts on health care utilization, costs and health outcomes. To address these outstanding questions, we will use the policy experiment created by Quebec's establishment of family medicine groups in 2002 to strengthen primary care. By joining novel administrative and survey data with experienced health economists, methodologists and policy analysts, we aim to understand the effects of primary care reform on health care utilization, costs and health outcomes. A better understanding of these impacts will inform policymakers' efforts to improve population health and control health care spending both in Canada and abroad.

using Quebec's family medicine group policy reform as a natural experiment to evaluate primary care effects on health system outcomes