Table 1.

Data sources and definitions of study variables

Data Source	Data Source Description	Study variables	Definition
PACT Compass	Gives primary care managers and staff access to data on key metrics such as access, continuity of care and care coordination. The PACT Compass is updated nightly and created from fields within the Corporate Data Warehouse.	Average Third Next Available Appointment	The average waiting time in days between a completed appointment and the Third-Next-Available Appointment slot for each primary care clinic. A snapshot is taken on the first day of each month for the prior month’s activity. The wait times in days until the Third-Next-Available Appointment are averaged monthly for completed appointments.
		Established Primary Care Patient Average Wait Time in Days	The average number of calendar days between an established patient’s primary care completed appointment and earliest of 3 possible preferred (desired) dates from the completed appointment date.
		Urgent Care Utilization Rate	The total number of Urgent Care encounters for assigned primary care patients in the last 12 months divided by the team assignments.
		Emergency Room Utilization Rate	The total number of Emergency Room encounters for assigned primary care patients in the last 12 months divided by the team assignments.
		Inbound-to-outbound primary care secure messages ratio	A ratio representing the total number of secure messages sent by a patient assigned to a given primary care team divided by the total number of secure messages sent from a primary care team member to a patient assigned to that primary care team during the reporting period.
Team Assignments Report	Displays all active PACTs at every VAMC and CBOC within the VHA system, along with the names and roles of the primary care staff members assigned to each team. It is updated nightly and created from fields within the Corporate Data Warehouse, thereby facilitating linkage to other data sources for our study.	RN Stability	The same person in the RN role for the entire 24-month period.
		RN Continuous Churn	An RN role that remained filled throughout the 24 months, but by more than 1 individual.
		RN Staffing Instability	An RN role filled from 16.67–99% of the 24 months.
		RN Vacancy	An RN role filled less than 16.67% of the time.
		Full-Time Equivalent	The sum of each team member’s scheduled hours on a team divided by the number of hours for a full-time workweek.
		Team Stability	The team’s overall stability for the 24-month period, calculated as 1 minus the number of separations divided by the average number of team members where a score of 1 indicates that the entire team remained unchanged.
		Relative Team Size	The comparison of an increase in team size (i.e., number of people assigned to a team) at a given point relative to the team’s average size.
		Average Team Size	The average size of the team across the 24 months.