Are family physicians comprehensively using electronic medical records such that the data can be used for secondary purposes? A Canadian perspective

Table 3 Comparison of study cohort physicians and all primary care physicians in Ontario as of March 31, 2012

Characteristic	EMRALD cohort physicians		All primary care physicians in Ontario^a
	N	%	N	%
Sample Size	167	100.0	8054	100.0
Sex
Female	94	56.0	3333	41.4
Male	74	44.1	4721	58.7
Age group
Under 35 years	25	14.9	500	6.2
35-44 years	57	33.9	1643	20.4
45-54 years	36	21.4	2425	30.1
55-79 years	46	27.4	3471	43.1
Unknown	4	2.4	15	0.2
Medical training location
Canada	150	89.3	5967	74.1
International [including US]	17	10.1	2074	25.8
Unknown	1	0.6	13	0.2
Rurality
Rural	32	19.1	631	7.6
Suburban	39	23.2	1355	16.3
Urban	97	57.7	6325	76.1
Visits in the Emergency Department
More than 25 % of practice/bills	20	11.9	347	4.3
Less than 25 % of practice/bills	148	88.1	7707	95.7
Practising in a patient enrolment model group
Full time affiliation	157	93.5	6774	84.1
Not affiliated	11	6.6	1280	15.9
	Mean	Range	Mean	Range
Physician Age on March 31, 2012	46.6	28-69	52.2	27-79
Years in practice	15.2	1-36	18.5	0-45
Years since graduation	19.9	3-43	26.3	2-65

^aPrimary care physicians were defined as having a main speciality of General Practitioner/Family Physician or Community Medicine/Public Health who’s practice is focused on primary care

ISSN: 1472-6947