PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Lauren Lapointe-Shaw
AU  - Tara Kiran
AU  - Christine Salahub
AU  - Peter C. Austin
AU  - Simon Berthelot
AU  - Laura Desveaux
AU  - Aisha Lofters
AU  - Malcolm Maclure
AU  - Danielle Martin
AU  - Kerry A. McBrien
AU  - Rita K. McCracken
AU  - Bahram Rahman
AU  - Susan E. Schultz
AU  - Jennifer Shuldiner
AU  - Mina Tadrous
AU  - Cherryl Bird
AU  - J. Michael Paterson
AU  - R. Sacha Bhatia
AU  - Niels A. Thakkar
AU  - Yingbo Na
AU  - Noah M. Ivers
TI  - Walk-in clinic patient characteristics and utilization patterns in Ontario, Canada: a cross-sectional study
AID  - 10.9778/cmajo.20220095
DP  - 2023 Mar 01
TA  - CMAJ Open
PG  - E345--E356
VI  - 11
IP  - 2
4099  - http://www.cmajopen.ca/content/11/2/E345.short
4100  - http://www.cmajopen.ca/content/11/2/E345.full
SO  - CMAJ2023 Mar 01; 11
AB  - Background: Walk-in clinics are common in North America and are designed to provide acute episodic care without an appointment. We sought to describe a sample of walk-in clinic patients in Ontario, Canada, which is a setting with high levels of primary care attachment.Methods: We performed a cross-sectional study using health administrative data from 2019. We compared the sociodemographic characteristics and health care utilization patterns of patients attending 1 of 72 walk-in clinics with those of the general Ontario population. We examined the subset of patients who were enrolled with a family physician and compared walk-in clinic visits to family physician visits.Results: Our study found that 562 781 patients made 1 148 151 visits to the included walk-in clinics. Most (70%) patients who attended a walk-in clinic had an enrolling family physician. Walk-in clinic patients were younger (mean age 36 yr v. 41 yr, standardized mean difference [SMD] 0.24), yet had greater health care utilization (moderate and high use group 74% v. 65%, SMD 0.20) than the general Ontario population. Among enrolled Ontarians, walk-in patients had more comorbidities (moderate and high count 50% v. 45%, SMD 0.10), lived farther from their enrolling physician (median 8 km v. 6 km, SMD 0.21) and saw their enrolling physician less in the previous year (any visit 67% v. 80%, SMD 0.30). Walk-in encounters happened more often after hours (16% v. 9%, SMD 0.20) and on weekends (18% v. 5%, SMD 0.45). Walk-in clinics were more often within 3 km of patients’ homes than enrolling physicians’ offices (0 to < 3 km: 32% v. 22%, SMD 0.21).Interpretation: Our findings suggest that proximity of walk-in clinics and after-hours access may be contributing to walk-in clinic use among patients enrolled with a family physician. These findings have implications for policy development to improve the integration of walk-in clinics and longitudinal primary care.