In 2010, the BC Ministry of Health set out a three-year service plan which included a focus on integrating family physician and community health care to address the increasing needs of the population due to aging, a rising burden of illness from chronic disease and an increased prevalence of frailty.
Starting in 2012, Health Authorities and the Ministry of Health committed to funding to help accelerate achievement of these objectives. These accelerated integrated primary and community care (aIPCC) initiatives are relatively small scale experiments targeting different population groups in different health regions.
Data access has recently been approved for a quantitative empirical analysis of the effects of the aIPCC initiatives to date on health care service use. Specific research questions include:
- How has healthcare utilization changed overall as a result of the programs?
- How has health care utilization changed for individual initiatives and/or groups of similar initiatives?
- Are there effects on particular types of service, such as emergency room visits or acute hospitalizations?
The research project, funded by The Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, is being led by Dr Kimberlyn McGrail, Associate Professor at the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research in UBC’s School of Population and Public Health.
“This research will inform policy-makers about the effect the aIPCC programs are having on healthcare service use within BC and also help inform policy-makers nationally about the effect of primary and community health care support programs for people with chronic and complex health care needs,” says McGrail.
For the project PopData will link data from the Health Authorities, the BC Ministry of Health and the BC Vital Statistics Agency with data from the Johns Hopkins Adjusted Clinical Groups System.
