Who gets access to an interprofessional team-based primary care programme for patients with complex health and social needs? A cross-sectional analysis

Objectives To determine whether a voluntary referral-based interprofessional team-based primary care programme reached its target population and to assess the representativeness of referring primary care physicians. Design Cross-sectional analysis of administrative health data. Setting Ontario, Canada. Intervention TeamCare provides access to Community Health Centre services for patients of non-team physicians with complex health and social needs. Participants All adult patients who participated in TeamCare between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2017 (n=1148), and as comparators, all non-referred adult patients of the primary care providers who shared patients in TeamCare (n=546 989), and a 1% random sample of the adult Ontario population (n=117 753). Results TeamCare patients were more likely to live in lower income neighbourhoods with a higher degree of marginalisation relative to comparison groups. TeamCare patients had a higher mean number of diagnoses, higher prevalence of all chronic conditions and had more frequent encounters with the healthcare system in the year prior to participation. Conclusions TeamCare reached a target population and fills an important gap in the Ontario primary care landscape, serving a population of patients with complex needs that did not previously have access to interprofessional team-based care. Strengths and limitations This study used population-level administrative health data. Data constraints limited the ability to identify patients referred to the programme but did not receive services, and data could not capture all relevant patient characteristics.