McColl Mary Ann, Aiken Alice, Schaub Michael
School of Rehabilitation Therapy, Queen's University, Kingston, ON K7L-3N6, Canada.
Centre for Health Services & Policy Research, Queen's University, Kingston, ON K7L-3N6, Canada.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2015 Apr 28;12(5):4638-51. doi: 10.3390/ijerph120504638.
Primary care has been ideally characterized as the medical home for all citizens, and yet recent data shows that approximately 6% do not have a family physician, and only 17.5% of family practices are open to new patients. Given acknowledged shortages of family physicians, this research asks the question: Do people with disabilities have particular difficulty finding a family physician? Health Care Connect (HCC) is a government-funded agency in Ontario Canada, designed to "help Ontarians who are without a family health care provider to find one". Using data from HCC, supplemented by interviews with HCC staff, the study explores the average wait time for patients with disabilities to be linked with a primary care physician, and the challenges faced by agency staff in doing so. The study found that disabled registrants with the program are only slightly disadvantaged in terms of wait times to find a family physician, and success rates are ultimately comparable; however, agency staff report that there are a number of significant challenges associated with placing disabled patients.
初级保健被理想地描述为所有公民的医疗之家，但最近的数据显示，约6%的人没有家庭医生，只有17.5%的家庭诊所接纳新患者。鉴于家庭医生公认的短缺情况，本研究提出一个问题：残疾人在寻找家庭医生方面是否有特别困难？医疗保健连接（HCC）是加拿大安大略省的一个政府资助机构，旨在“帮助没有家庭医疗服务提供者的安大略人找到一位”。该研究利用HCC的数据，并辅以对HCC工作人员的访谈，探讨了残疾患者与初级保健医生建立联系的平均等待时间，以及该机构工作人员在这一过程中面临的挑战。研究发现，参与该项目的残疾登记者在寻找家庭医生的等待时间方面仅略有劣势，最终成功率相当；然而，该机构工作人员报告称，安置残疾患者存在一些重大挑战。
