Primary care services organisation - A portrait of primary care medical services in Montréal and Montérégie - Summary

This summary report on primary care services organisation (Hamel, Pineault et al., 2007) is part of a series of publications focusing on the research project results. It presents evidence and unpublished data on primary care medical services organisation. Results are given according to administrative region and Health and Social Services Centre (CSSS) territory.

The data come from a large 2005 study of primary care medical offices and clinics in the regions chosen. This report is intended for clinical and administrative decision makers in Montréal and Montérégie as well as for research groups, clinicians and anyone else interested in primary case services organisation.

Under the current circumstances, at a time when Québec's health system is undergoing significant changes, these data provide very useful information. Moreover, data for this study was collected when the first Family Medicine Groups (FMG) were being implemented and the new CSSS set up. The data precedes implementation of the first Cliniquesréseau. The study period is therefore regarded as time 0 in relation to the implementation of CSSS.

Our study results highlight certain deficiencies that affect almost all organisations. The small number of primary care nurses and poor information technologies throughout the primary care network are examples of these shortcomings.

Finally, to appreciate the full development potential of primary care services, it is essential to study organisational structures that result from combining the organisations’ different attributes, based on the data we have. An initial analysis of the profiles and types of primary care organisations has indeed revealed that new emerging models such as FMG possess many organisational qualities identified as desirable in the primary care literature (Pineault, Levesque et al., 2007). It also reveals that other organisational approaches compare favourably with newly emerging types.