Physician-workforce-Canada - Health Quality Ontario (HQO)

INDICATOR NAME

Name

Number of physicians across Canada per 100,000 people (Retired)

Alternate Name

Number of family doctors and specialists across Canada per 100,000 people

INDICATOR DESCRIPTION

Description

This indicator measures the number of licensed physicians across Canada per 100,000 people. It includes family doctors and specialists.

Indicator Status

Retired

HQO Reporting tool/product

Public reporting

Dimension

Efficient

Type

Structure

DEFINITION AND SOURCE INFORMATION

Unit of Measurement

Number per 100,000 people

Calculation Methods

This indicator is calculated by dividing the number of doctors by the size of the population, and multiplying it by 100,000 to get the number of doctors per 100,000 people.

Numerator including inclusion/exclusion

Number of active doctors in Canada or in a province, including family doctors (family medicine only, family medicine/emergency medicine) and specialists (internal medicine, pediatrics, surgery, laboratory medicine, other)

Inclusions:

Active physician (physicians with a medical doctor degree and a valid mailing address), including doctors not engaged in any private clinical practice such as administrators and teachers
Active physicians not registered with their provincial registrar (“non-registered physicians”)
Non-certified specialist physicians as of December 31 of the reference year (physicians licensed as specialists but are not certified by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada or the Collège des médecins du Québec)

Exclusions:

Deceased physicians
Residents
Physicians who are retired, semi-retired, temporarily retired, on leave of absence, on sabbatical, temporarily not in practice, or not in practice
Military physicians
Non-registered physicians who request to be excluded from publication (non-registered physicians only)
Physicians practising outside of Canada

Denominator including inclusion/exclusion

Estimated number of people living in Canada or province

Adjustment (risk, age/sex standardization)- detailed

None

Data Source

Scott’s Medical Database, Statistics Canada population estimates

Data provided to HQO by

Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI)

Reported Levels of comparability /stratifications (defined)

Province

OTHER RELEVANT INFORMATION

Caveats and Limitations

The indicator values calculated using data provided to HQO from CIHI may differ from the values reported by others or the values calculated by HQO from data provided by OPHRDC. The differences may be due to differences in inclusion/exclusion criteria, timing of data collection and reference population. The measure looks at the number of health care providers per 100,000 population, however it does not account for differences in scope of practice or differences in health status/needs of the population being served in each jurisdiction. The range of services provided by a doctor is subject to jurisdictional licensure rules, medical service plan payment arrangements and individual practice choices.

Comments Detailed

The indicator is based on information from Scott’s Medical Database. Scott’s Directories maintains the database by collecting data from several organizations and institution such as the jurisdictional registrars, medical schools, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, the College of Family Physicians of Canada, the Collège des médecins du Québec and Canadian hospitals. Information in the database is updated through biannual questionnaires sent to all active doctors in the database and new medical school graduates, as well as through information on individual doctors derived from publicly available monthly or quarterly reports and yearly registration directories issued by jurisdictional licensing authorities. doctors can have multiple practice locations including other provinces or countries. Doctors are assigned to the province corresponding to their preferred mailing address. “Specialists” include doctors certified with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada or the Collège des médecins du Québec, as well as non-certified specialists. “Family doctors” includes general practitioners (doctors, excluding interns and residents, without a current medical specialty certified in Canada) and family medicine and emergency family medicine specialists certified with the College of Family Physicians Canada. Retired from Measuring Up