The Physician Workforce Active in Patient Care

The New England States had a relatively high supply of physicians, both specialists and those in primary care, per hundred thousand residents. The hospital service areas in Boston (331); New Haven, Connecticut (291); Providence, Rhode Island (222); Portland, Maine (211); and Burlington, Vermont (198) all had supplies of physicians in active practice in excess of the national average; the Manchester, New Hampshire, hospital service area, with 161, was below it.

Figure 4.1.

Physicians Allocated to Hospital Service Areas in the New England States (1993). The number of physicians in active practice per hundred thousand residents, after adjusting for differences in age and sex of the local population, ranged from fewer than (more...)

Map 4.1.

Physicians per 100,000 Residents.

Specialist Physicians

The supply of physicians per hundred thousand residents in specialty practice in the New England States was greater in the larger cities and their surrounding suburban areas, and in some resort areas of the region. The Boston hospital service area, with 218 specialists per hundred thousand residents, was not dramatically higher than New Haven, Connecticut, which had 195; and areas such as Boothbay Harbor, Maine (191); Falmouth, Massachusetts (185); and Hyannis, Massachusetts (183) were close to the level of the major medical teaching centers. The hospital service areas in Portland, Maine (135); Providence, Rhode Island (145); Burlington, Vermont (123); and Manchester, New Hampshire (107) were closer to the United States average of 122 specialists per hundred thousand population.

Figure 4.2.

Specialists Allocated to Hospital Service Areas in the New England States (1993). The number of specialist physicians in active practice per hundred thousand residents, after adjusting for differences in age and sex of the local population, ranged from (more...)

Map 4.2.

Specialist Physicians per 100,000 Residents.

Physicians in Primary Care

The New England States had a robust supply of primary care physicians in active practice, when compared to other areas of the nation. Differences in the rates of primary care physicians per hundred thousand residents, however, were significant, even among the region’s larger cities. Boston, with 110 primary care physicians per hundred thousand residents, had a supply 66% higher than the United States average of 66; New Haven, Connecticut (93); Portland, Maine (75); Providence, Rhode Island (75); and Burlington, Vermont (74) were also above the national average. The Manchester, New Hampshire, hospital service area, with 53, was below the national average supply of primary care physicians, and some areas, including New Bedford, Massachusetts (38); Bristol, Connecticut (44); and Woonsocket, Rhode Island (48), were well below it.

Figure 4.3.

Primary Care Physicians Allocated to Hospital Service Areas in the New England States (1993). The number of primary care physicians in active practice per hundred thousand residents, after adjusting for differences in age and sex of the local population, (more...)

Map 4.3.

Primary Care Physicians per 100,000 Residents.

Benchmarking: The Physician Workforce Active in Patient Care

Figure 4.4.

The Total Physician Workforce Allocated to Selected Hospital Service Areas in the New England States Compared to the Highest and Lowest Ranked Selected Areas (1993). The figure gives the ratio of the total physician workforce in selected hospital service (more...)

Figure 4.5.

The Total Physician Workforce Allocated to Selected Hospital Service Areas in the New England States Compared to Selected Hospital Service Areas Elsewhere in the U.S. and to a Large HMO (1993). The figure gives the ratio of the total physician workforce (more...)

Benchmarking: Specialists

Figure 4.6.

Specialist Physicians Allocated to Selected Hospital Service Areas in the New England States Compared to the Highest and Lowest Ranked Selected Areas (1993). The figure gives the ratio of specialists in selected hospital service areas to the highest (more...)

Figure 4.7.

Specialist Physicians Allocated to Selected Hospital Service Areas in the New England States Compared to Selected Hospital Service Areas Elsewhere in the U.S. and to a Large HMO (1993). The figure gives the ratio of specialists in selected hospital service (more...)

Benchmarking: Primary Care Physicians

Figure 4.8.

Primary Care Physicians Allocated to Selected Hospital Service Areas in the New England States Compared to the Highest and Lowest Ranked Selected Areas (1993). The figure gives the ratio of primary care physicians in selected hospital service areas to (more...)

Figure 4.9.

Primary Care Physicians Allocated to Selected Hospital Service Areas in the New England States Compared to Selected Hospital Service Areas Elsewhere in the U.S. and to a Large HMO (1993). The figure gives the ratio of primary care physicians in selected (more...)

Table 4

All rates are age and sex adjusted and corrected for out of area use. See Part Nine of the national volume of the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care for details.

The count of primary physicians added to the count of specialists does not equal the count for all physicians; the difference (about 1% nationally) is attributable to the count of those in the “All Physician” category whose specialty areas were “unspecified.”

Hospital service areas with populations of 5,000 or fewer residents are omitted from the figures and maps. In the table, the data for these areas are in parentheses.

The estimates for the staffing patterns of the large health maintenance organization have been adjusted using a .10 adjustment for out-of-plan use and .04 for low Medicaid numbers; i.e., multiplied by a factor of 1.14. (Weiner JP. Forecasting the Effects of Health Reform on U.S. Physician Workforce Requirement. JAMA. 1994;272:222-239)

Table 4.

Physicians in Active Practice Serving Residents of Hospital Service Areas (Physicians per 100,000 population, 1993).