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Primary care visits increase utilization of evidence-based preventative health measures
- Source :
- BMC Family Practice, Vol 21, Iss 1, Pp 1-10 (2020), BMC Family Practice
- Publication Year :
- 2020
- Publisher :
- Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2020.
-
Abstract
- Background Primary care visits can serve many purposes and potentially influence health behaviors. Although previous studies suggest that increasing primary care provider numbers may be beneficial, the mechanism responsible for the association is unclear, and have not linked primary care access to specific preventative interventions. We investigated the association between the number of times patients accessed their primary care provider team and the likelihood they received selected preventative health interventions. Methods Patients with complete data sets from Sanford Health were categorized based on the number of primary care visits they received in a specified time period and the preventative health interventions they received. Patient characteristics were used in a propensity analysis to control for variables. Relative risks and 95% confidence intervals were calculated to estimate the likelihood of obtaining preventative measures based on number of primary care visits compared with patients who had no primary care visits during the specified time period. Results The likelihood of a patient receiving three specified preventative interventions was increased by 127% for vaccination, 122% for colonoscopy, and 75% for mammography if the patient had ≥ 1 primary care visit per year. More primary care visits correlated with increasing frequency of vaccinations, but increased primary care visits beyond one did not correlate with increasing frequency of mammography or colonoscopy. Conclusions One or more primary care visits per year is associated with increased likelihood of specific evidence-based preventative care interventions that improve longitudinal health outcomes and decrease healthcare costs. Increasing efforts to track and increase the number of primary care visits by clinics and health systems may improve patient compliance with select preventative measures.
- Subjects :
- medicine.medical_specialty
Evidence-based practice
Health Personnel
Psychological intervention
Patient characteristics
Colonoscopy
Primary care
01 natural sciences
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Health care
Humans
Medicine
030212 general & internal medicine
0101 mathematics
lcsh:R5-920
Primary Health Care
medicine.diagnostic_test
Wellness visits
business.industry
Vaccination
010102 general mathematics
Confidence interval
Relative risk
Emergency medicine
Patient Compliance
lcsh:Medicine (General)
Family Practice
business
Research Article
Mammography
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 14712296
- Volume :
- 21
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- BMC Family Practice
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....f847dc9da5a46a8c0d6011a7707127aa
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1186/s12875-020-01216-8