Table 3.

Quality of primary care measures

Variable	Type	Level	Definition	Frequency	Data source(s)
Access to primary care	Continuous	Patient	The proportion of all non-urgent (eg, Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale of 4 or 5) ambulatory visits that are with a primary care physician, in the preceding year, at the time of each prescription.	Per Rx	Patient Registry, Physician Billing, Physician Registry, NACRS
			Values: numerical, bound between 0 and 1
Continuity of care	Continuous	Patient	Number of contacts with the usual prescriber of care, divided by the number of all ambulatory contacts, in the preceding year, at the time of each prescription.	Per Rx	Patient Registry, Physician Billing, Physician Registry, NACRS
			Values: numerical, bound between 0 and 1
Practice type	Categorical	Physician	We will apply Schultz and Glazier’s approach68 to create an empirical threshold for primary care comprehensiveness and classify each primary care physician by the number of distinct activity areas they bill.	Per Rx	Physician Billing, Physician Registry
			Values: focused practice=# of activity areas<empirical threshold
			Comprehensive practice=# activity areas≥empirical threshold
Comprehensiveness of care	Continuous	Patient	The proportion of all primary care visits with a physician providing comprehensive care (practice type), in the preceding year, at each prescription fill.	Per Rx	Physician Billing, Physician Registry

NACRS, National Ambulatory Care Reporting System; Rx, prescription.