The influence of primary health care organizational models on patients' experience of care in different chronic disease situations.

OBJECTIVES

To examine the extent to which experience of care varies across chronic diseases, and to analyze the relationship of primary health care (PHC) organizational models with the experience of care reported by patients in different chronic disease situations.

METHODS

We linked a population survey and a PHC organizational survey conducted in two regions of Quebec. We identified five groups of chronic diseases and contrasted these with a no-chronic-disease group.

RESULTS

Accessibility of care is low for all chronic conditions and shows little variation across diseases. The contact and the coordination-integrated models are the most accessible, whereas the single-provider model is the least. Process and outcome indices of care experience are much higher than accessibility for all conditions and vary across diseases, with the highest being for cardiovascular-risk-factors and the lowest for respiratory diseases (for people aged 44 and under). However, as we move from risk factors to more severe chronic conditions, the coordination-integrated and community models are more likely to generate better process of care, highlighting the greater potential of these two models to meet the needs of more severely chronically ill individuals within the Canadian health care system.