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INDICATOR NAME
Name
Number of physicians in Ontario per 100,000 people (Retired)
Alternate Name
Number of family doctors and specialists practicing in Ontario per 100,000 people
 
INDICATOR DESCRIPTION
Description
This indicator measures the number of licensed physicians practising in Ontario 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 number of people in Ontario or region, and multiplying it by 100,000 to get the number of doctors per 100,000 people.
Numerator including inclusion/exclusion

Number of licensed doctors actively practising in Ontario as of December 31 of each year, including family doctors (family medicine only, family medicine/emergency medicine) and specialists (internal medicine, pediatrics, surgery, laboratory medicine, other)

 Inclusions:

  1. Licensed physicians practising in Ontario, including physicians who are semi-retired and military physicians 

 Exclusions:

  1. Deceased physicians
  2. Postgraduate medical trainees holding a general license who had not completed training by July 31
  3. Physicians who reach age 85 in the reporting year
  4. Physicians with expired licenses
  5. Physicians with educational, short term or academic visitor license class
Denominator including inclusion/exclusion
Estimated or projected number of people living in Ontario or region
Adjustment (risk, age/sex standardization)- detailed
None
Data Source
Ontario Ministry of Finance population projections, OPHRDC Physicians in Ontario report, Statistics Canada population estimates
Data provided to HQO by
Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (MOHLTC), Ontario Physician Human Resources Data Centre (OPHRDC)
Reported Levels of comparability /stratifications (defined)
Region, Time
 
OTHER RELEVANT INFORMATION
Caveats and Limitations
The indicator values calculated using data provided to HQO from OPHRDC may differ from the values reported by others or the values calculated by HQO from data provided by CIHI. 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 the health status/needs of the population being served in each region. The population of one health region may receive health care in another health region, impacting the supply and type of doctors required in different regions. This is common for regions bordering larger urban areas.
Comments Detailed
The indicator is based on information in the Active Physician Registry, which is a registry of all doctors practising in Ontario that is maintained by the Ontario Physician Human Resource Data Centre. The number of doctors is derived from data from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, data from the College of Family Physicians Canada, records of the Ontario Health Insurance Plan, records in the Ontario Postgraduate Medical Trainee Registry, and information collected from doctors by the OPHRDC dynamic interview. Doctors can have multiple practice locations including other provinces or countries. A doctor is counted as active in Ontario if they have an Ontario practice address and make a regular contribution to health care in Ontario. “Specialists” includes doctors from the following specialties: internal medicine, pediatrics, surgery, laboratory medicine, and other specialties (e.g., anesthesiology, emergency medicine, psychiatry, public health and preventive medicine). Specialists are identified based on specialty recorded by CPSO for the most recent specialty or subspecialty of RCPSC certification or ‘functional specialty’ recorded by the OPHRDC dynamic interview. “Family doctors” includes family doctors and family doctors with certification in emergency medicine. Family doctors are identified using certification data provided by CFPC and remaining doctors shown to be billing OHIP in ‘general practice’. Retired from Measuring Up
 
TAGS
Sector
Other
Type
Structure
Topic
Health Human Resources
Dimension
Efficient
Source
Ontario Ministry of Finance population projections, OPHRDC Physicians in Ontario report, Statistics Canada population estimates
 
PUBLISH
Publish Datetime
18/04/2018 11:22:00