Measuring the relationship between outpatient family physician visit regularity and acute care utilization during the end of life: a population-level retrospective cohort study

Key Points

• This research aims to examine how the regularity of outpatient family physician visits relates to the use of acute care services at the end of life.
• Conducted a retrospective cohort study
• Analyzed population-level data on physician visits
• Measured visit regularity and acute care utilization during the last two years of life
• Higher regularity of outpatient visits was associated with increased acute care utilization at the end of life
• Low visit regularity was noted in the final two years
• The Reliability of Visit Indicator (RVI) has limitations based on observation periods for assessing care quality