[Technical equipment in the offices of practicing physicians in Vaud and Fribourg]

In the framework of health services research sponsored by the Swiss National Science Foundation, a survey by questionnaire was undertaken among the practicing physicians in two Swiss cantons, Vaud and Fribourg (total population 700,000), in order to gather information on their personal and professional characteristics (including type of medical activity, personnel employed, and equipment). Out of 1121 physicians concerned, 60% answered. (The respondent group is representative for the relevant parameters.) This article presents the findings regarding the medico-technical equipment doctors have in their offices and gives also indications on the relationship between the presence of equipment and the auxiliary personnel employed. General practitioners and internal medicine specialists are usually equipped for laboratory analyses, with a photometer (69% of them) or more simply (24%), for X-rays (47% for chest and skeleton radiography, 22% with radioscopy); they also generally have an ECG apparatus (81%) and one or several physiotherapy appliances (52% of them). 42% of the generalists and 22% of the internists have all those four types of equipment. Rates of availability are much lower among other medical specialties. Pediatricians in particular are clearly less equipped technically than the other groups of primary care physicians. Surgeons are often well equipped for physiotherapy. The differences according to physician age are examined; this shows that younger generations are not much more equipped than older ones. The devices which we regrouped as "other diagnostic equipment" however tend to replace radioscopy in the equipment of younger physicians. These results constitute a new contribution to the knowledge on the ambulatory medical care system in Switzerland and should be useful in the present discussions on the medical coverage of the country.