Patient visits to a midwestern primary care practice-based research network: a comparison to two national primary care data sets.

Background: Regional primary care practice-based research networks (PBRNs) have made important contributions to the primary care literature, but have not been well-described. This study compares pediatric patient characteristics within a new regional PBRN to pediatric patient characteristics from two previously published national data sets. Methods: Descriptive patient data were collected by 25 Southwestern Ohio Ambulatory Research Network (SOAR-Net) clinicians between July 2003 and June 2004. These data were compared to pediatric patient characteristics from 57 Pediatric Research in Office Setting clinicians and 33 primary care pediatric clinicians who participated in the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survery. Results: SOAR-Net patients were almost twice as likely to use Medicaid (41.9% vs 22.0%/22.4%, p = 0.0001). SOAR-Net patients also were more likely to be African-American (23.7% vs 7.5%/17.6%, p = 0.002). About one third of patients in each sample were seen for a well visit. Conclusion: Regional networks with unique characteristics, such as a large number of Medicaid patients and/or many underserved minority patients have the potential to make significant contributions to primary care research by focusing on problems experienced within those segments of a population (e.g., indigent children and their families).