More doctors or better care?

Area of Science:

• Health Policy
• Health Services Research
• Public Health

Background:

• The Canadian Medical Association's More Doctors, More Care campaign advocates for increased physician supply.
• International comparisons are often used to set national physician supply targets.
• The relationship between physician supply and healthcare outcomes requires examination.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the association between physician supply and healthcare outcomes using Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) data.
• To determine if increasing the number of doctors improves health outcomes in Canada.

Main Methods:

• Utilized OECD data from 19 countries.
• Analyzed the correlation between physician supply metrics and avoidable mortality rates.
• Examined relationships with overall physician supply, general practitioners, specialists, nurses, and health expenditures per capita.

Main Results:

• No statistically significant association was found between overall physician supply and avoidable mortality.
• No relationship was observed between avoidable mortality and the per capita numbers of general practitioners, specialists, nurses, or combined doctors and nurses.
• Health expenditures per capita also showed no correlation with avoidable mortality.

Conclusions:

• Increased physician numbers do not necessarily lead to better healthcare outcomes for Canadians.
• Policy efforts should prioritize improving access to high-quality care.
• Maintaining the current generalist-to-specialist mix is important; physician turnover should not jeopardize this balance.