{"id":23956,"date":"2025-09-11T15:46:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T19:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ices.on.ca\/?post_type=journal_article&#038;p=23956"},"modified":"2026-05-11T15:54:40","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T19:54:40","slug":"better-primary-care-continuity-improves-patient-outcomes-after-hospital-discharge","status":"publish","type":"journal_article","link":"https:\/\/www.ices.on.ca\/fr\/publications\/journal-articles\/better-primary-care-continuity-improves-patient-outcomes-after-hospital-discharge\/","title":{"rendered":"Better primary care continuity improves patient outcomes after hospital discharge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Introduction<\/strong> \u2014 We examined the effect of the quality of primary care continuity on readmission to a general admitting clinical teaching unit (GACTU), any hospital readmission, and emergency department (ED) visits within 1 year of discharge from a GACTU in Ontario.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Methods<\/strong> \u2014 Using a retrospective cohort design combining administrative and electronic medical record data, we categorized adult patients based on a time-varying covariate into four groups of quality of primary care continuity based on primary care use preceding each patient outcome in the follow-up period: (1) rostered and saw their rostered primary care physician (PCP), (2) rostered but did not see their rostered PCP, (3) non-rostered but saw the same PCP 2+ times, and (4) non-rostered and did not see the same PCP 2+ times.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Results<\/strong> \u2014 After adjusting for covariates, group 2 patients had greater risk of each outcome than group 1 patients (reference group): GACTU readmission (hazard ratio [HR]: 1.24; 95% CI 1.002 to 1.54; p = .048), hospital readmission (HR: 1.29; 95% CI 1.10 to 1.53; p = .002), and ED visit (HR: 1.22; 95% CI 1.06 to 1.40; p = .005).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Discussion<\/strong> \u2014 This exploratory study suggests higher quality of primary care continuity was associated with fewer re-encounters with acute care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Introduction \u2014 We examined the effect of the quality of primary care continuity on readmission to a general admitting clinical teaching unit (GACTU), any hospital readmission, and emergency department (ED) visits within 1 year of discharge from a GACTU in Ontario. Methods \u2014 Using a retrospective cohort design combining administrative and electronic medical record data, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","migration-helper-automated":[],"migration-manual":[],"topic":[62,28],"migration-helper-qa-sample-set":[],"class_list":["post-23956","journal_article","type-journal_article","status-publish","hentry","topic-health-services-research","topic-primary-care"],"acf":{"citation":"Mathews M, Reid J, Appleton A, Torti J, Welk B, Shariff SZ, Goldszmidt M. CJGIM. 20(3): 135-146. Epub 2025 Sep 11.","source_url":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3138\/cjgim.2024.0018","ices_scientist":[16836,1131,1359],"site":[6739],"research_program":[6743],"news_release":"","journal_article":"","atlas":"","research_report":"","infographic":"","video":"","downloads":null,"links":null,"sitecore_item_id":"","sitecore_item_name":"","sitecore_field_values":"","previous_url":""},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>ICES | Better primary care continuity improves patient outcomes after hospital discharge<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Introduction \u2014 We examined the effect of the quality of primary care continuity on readmission to a general admitting clinical teaching unit (GACTU), any\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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