Measuring the Value-Functions of Primary Care: Physician Level Continuity of Care Measure
Identifying Attributes
Care Settings
Country
Publishing Organisation
Type of Quality Indicator
IOM Quality Dimension
Domain
Defining Attributes
Definition
This is a measure evaluating primary care physicians (PCPs); for each PCP, the denominator is all patients seen during the evaluation period who had at least 2 PCP visits.
Numerator
The numerator is the number of patients with a continuity index of at least 0.7. Numerator Details: For each patient, the continuity index score is calculated using the Bice-Boxerman Continuity of Care calculated as follows: Bice Boxerman-Continuity of Care Patient =(Summation(i=1)^k ni^2)-N/(N(N-1)) where k is the number of PCPs, n_i is the number of visits to PCP i and N is the total number of visits. (Note that it is necessary that the patient has at least two visits.) The index can range from 0 to 1, the higher the number the greater the Continuity of Care. If someone has all their visits with a single PCP, their index will equal 1.
Denominator
The denominator is the total number of patients with at least 2 visits to any PCPs during the measurement period. The denominator is calculated by summing the total number of patients with two or more primary care visits who had at least one of those visits with that physician. A patient with visits to more than one physician will appear in the denominator for the physician who saw the patient the most. DENOMINATOR NOTE: The requirement of at least 2 visits is necessary to calculate a Continuity of Care index. Denominator Criteria (Eligible Cases): The denominator is the total number of patients with continuous enrolment with at least 2 visits to any primary care physicians in the measurement period.
Exclusions
Use of Risk Adjustment
Risk Adjustments
None
Stratifications
Data Attributes
Type of Data Collection
Data Collection Methods
ABFM PRIME - EHR; Registry; Other: EHR: Administrative data, Registry: PRIME, Other: Patient administrative data, physician EHR, PRIME Registry