Primary Care Provider Demographics and Engagement in Interprofessional Collaboration

Interprofessional care contributes to all components of the quadruple aim. While previous research has identified many facilitators and barriers to the provision of interprofessional care, whether demographic differences might influence the extent to which providers collaborate interprofessionally remains unknown.

Using electronic health record data, we characterized the level of primary care providers' (PCPs') interprofessional collaboration based on the percent of their patients who had a visit with an interprofessional team member over a 14-month period. We then obtained demographic data, including gender, years in practice, and provider type, from the electronic health record and publicly available sources. Subsequently, we used linear regression to predict the PCPs' level of interprofessional collaboration based on demographic indicators.

The median of each PCP's patients who had a visit with an interprofessional team member during the study period was 12.6%. After controlling for the average age of the PCP's patient panel, the PCP's years in practice, and the PCP's clinic, when compared with male PCPs, approximately 2% more of patients cared for by female PCPs had a visit with an interprofessional team member.

Female providers are more likely to share their patients with an interprofessional team.