Orthopedic surgeons' transition into full-time practice over the last 20 years: an analysis using Ministry of Health billing data.

Background: Underemployment is a reality for many new graduates, who accept locum or part-time work as an alternative to unemployment because of lack of opportunities. We sought to analyze orthopedic surgeons' Ontario Health Insurance Program (OHIP) billing data over a 20-year period as a proxy of practice patterns and hypothesized that billing in the first 6 years of practice would be affected by underemployment and locum.

Methods: We analyzed the annual average billing totals of orthopedic surgeons, broken down by year of graduation, year of billings, and number of surgeons billing in that year.

Sex Disparities in Operating Room use Among Cataract Surgeons: A 10-Year Retrospective Population-Based Analysis.

Purpose: To evaluate sex differences in operating room (OR) time and case volumes among comprehensive cataract surgeons in Ontario, Canada's most populated province.

Design: Retrospective, population-based cohort study.

Methods: Physician billing data of active comprehensive cataract surgeons between 2010 and 2019 were analyzed to identify all cataract surgeries in this timeframe.

Referring and Specialist Physician Gender and Specialist Billing.

Importance: While a gender pay gap in medicine has been well documented, relatively little research has addressed mechanisms that mediate gender differences in referral income for specialists.

Objective: To examine gender-based disparities in medical and surgical specialist referrals in Ontario, Canada.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This cross-sectional study included referrals for specialist care ascertained from Ontario Health Insurance Plan physician billings for fiscal year 2018 to 2019.

Developing a dashboard to help measure and achieve the triple aim: a population-based cohort study.

Background: Health system planners aim to pursue the three goals of Triple Aim: 1) reduce health care costs; 2) improve population health; and 3) improve the care experience. Moreover, they also need measures that can reliably predict future health care needs in order to manage effectively the health system performance. Yet few measures exist to assess Triple Aim and predict future needs at a health system level.

Inclusion of persons with mental illness in patient-centred medical homes: cross-sectional findings from Ontario, Canada.

Background: In Ontario, Canada, the patient-centred medical home is a model of primary care delivery that includes 3 model types of interest for this study: enhanced fee-for-service, blended capitation, and team-based blended capitation. All 3 models involve rostering of patients and have similar practice requirements but differ in method of physician reimbursement, with the blended capitation models incorporating adjustments for age and sex, but not case mix, of rostered patients. We evaluated the extent to which persons with mental illness were included in physicians' total practices (as rostered and non-rostered patients) and were included on physicians' rosters across types of medical homes in Ontario.

Evaluation of the equity of age-sex adjusted primary care capitation payments in Ontario, Canada.

Objective: Several innovative primary care models have recently been introduced in Ontario, Canada. Two of these models are funded primarily through age-sex based capitation. There is concern that adjusting capitation rates for age and sex alone does not take into account the increased morbidity burden and health care needs that are associated with lower socioeconomic status.

Setting research priorities to reduce almost one million deaths from birth asphyxia by 2015.

Joy Lawn and colleagues used a systematic process developed by the Child Health Nutrition Research Initiative (CHNRI) to define and rank research options to reduce mortality from intrapartum-related neonatal deaths (birth asphyxia) by the year 2015.

An evaluation of access to health care services along the rural-urban continuum in Canada.

Background: Studies comparing the access to health care of rural and urban populations have been contradictory and inconclusive. These studies are complicated by the influence of other factor which have been shown to be related to access and utilization. This study assesses the equity of access to health care services across the rural-urban continuum in Canada before and after taking other determinants of access into account.

Reasons for self-reported unmet healthcare needs in Canada: a population-based provincial comparison.

In this study, we compare self-perceived unmet need across Canadian provinces and assess how the reasons for unmet need - problems with availability, accessibility and acceptability - vary. This cross-sectional study uses data from the Canadian Community Health Survey (2.1) conducted in 2003.

Risk adjustment using administrative data-based and survey-derived methods for explaining physician utilization.

Objectives: The objective of this study was to evaluate an administrative data-based risk adjustment method for predicting physician utilization and the contribution of survey-derived indicators of health status. The results of this study will support the use of administrative data for planning, reimbursement, and assessing equity of physician utilization.

Methods: The Ontario portion of the 2000-2001 Canadian Community Health Survey was linked with administrative physician claims data from 2002-2003 and 2003-2004.

The predictors of self-rated health and the relationship between self-rated health and health service needs are similar across socioeconomic groups in Canada.

Objective: To examine if there are systematic differences in the predictors of self-rated health (SRH) and to examine the relationship between SRH and health care utilization across socioeconomic groups.

Study Design And Setting: We used cross-sectional data from the Canadian Community Health Survey linked to the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (N=17,109). We examined relative differences in the factors associated with different levels of SRH across socioeconomic groups (as assessed by education and household income) using probit models separately for men and women.

Universal health insurance and equity in primary care and specialist office visits: a population-based study.

Purpose: Universal coverage of physician services should serve to reduce socioeconomic disparities in care, but the degree to which a reduction occurs is unclear. We examined equity in use of physician services in Ontario, Canada, after controlling for health status using both self-reported and diagnosis-based measures.

Methods: Ontario respondents to the 2000-2001 Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) were linked with physician claim files in 2002-2003 and 2003-2004.

Capitation and enhanced fee-for-service models for primary care reform: a population-based evaluation.

Background: Primary care reform in Ontario, Canada, included the initiation of a blended capitation model in 2001-2002 and an enhanced fee-for-service model in 2003. Both models involve patient rostering, incentives for preventive care and requirements for after-hours care. We evaluated practice characteristics and patterns of care under both models.

Cataract surgical outcome at the Vancouver Eye Care Centre: can it be predicted using current data?

Background: Patients selected for cataract surgery have an increasingly wider range of coexisting ocular and systemic diseases. The aim of this study was to determine whether preoperative patient characteristics can assist surgeons in identifying patients who are at increased risk of having little or no improvement in visual outcome after cataract surgery.

Methods: We prospectively studied a randomly selected subset (20%) of patients with cataract undergoing cataract extraction at a tertiary centre in Vancouver.

Outcome of corneal transplantation: can a prioritisation system predict outcome?

Background: In 1995 a prioritisation system for patients waiting for corneal transplantation surgery was adopted in British Columbia. In 1997 a routine outcome assessment programme was adopted. The authors sought to determine the outcomes of corneal transplant surgery in the province of British Columbia and to evaluate if they were associated with waiting list prioritisation.