Group practice impacts on patients, physicians and healthcare systems: a scoping review

To identify the advantages and disadvantages that group practices have on patients, physicians and healthcare systems.

A scoping review was performed based on the methodology proposed by Arksey and O'Malley, and refined by Levac et al. Titles and abstracts were screened by two reviewers. A quantitative analysis was performed to assess the type, year and region of publication, as well as the population studied. A qualitative descriptive analysis was performed to identify common themes.

MEDLINE, EMBASE and Cochrane databases were searched from database inception to October 2018 for papers which assessed outcomes relevant to the research question.

Our search strategy returned 2408 papers and 98 were included in the final analysis. Most papers were from the USA, were surveys and assessed physician outcomes. Advantages of group practices for patients included improved satisfaction and quality of care. Studies of physicians reported improved quality of life and income, while disadvantages included increased stress due to poor interpersonal relationships. Studies of healthcare systems reported improved efficiency and better utilisation of resources.

Group practices have many benefits for patients and physicians. However, further work needs to be done assessing patient outcomes and establishing the elements that make a group practice successful.