National Survey of Canadian Physicians

Understanding Canadian physicians' experiences with virtual care

Study Objectives

The 2021 National Survey of Canadian Physicians, conducted by Canada Health Infoway (Infoway) and the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), aims to better understand the use of digital health and information technology among physicians in Canada.

Specific objectives of the study are to assess:

  • Virtual Care
    • Current use, perceptions, and experience with virtual care (specifically telephone, secure email / messaging, video, remote monitoring)
    • Challenges and barriers to use
    • Anticipated use of virtual care post-pandemic
  • Electronic Tools/Functionalities
    • Use of EMR and identifying vendor
    • Use of electronic tools in care of patients
    • Use of electronic communications between providers
    • Methods of generating new prescriptions

Methodology

Leger - the largest Canadian-owned polling and marketing research firm – conducted this web survey with 2,071 physicians practicing in Canada who are members of CMA, including 1,000 GP/FMs, 973 Specialists, and 98 residents via Computer-Assisted Web Interviewing technology (CAWI).

The LEO (Leger Opinion) panel is the largest Canadian panel with nearly 500,000 representative panelists from all regions of Canada. LEO was created by Leger based on a representative Canadian sample of Canadian citizens with Internet access. Leo's panelists were randomly selected (RDD), panelists from more hard-to-reach target groups were also added to the panel through targeted recruitment campaigns. The double-opt-in selection process, a model to detect fraud and the renewal of 25% of the panel each year ensures complete respondent quality.

The results presented in this study comply with the public opinion research standards and disclosure requirements of CRIC (the Canadian research and insights council) and the global ESOMAR network.

Interpretation of Data

Privacy: Data visualizations do not allow for filtering of data where sample sizes are smaller than 30 respondents in order to preserve respondent anonymity.

Rounding Error: The data presented have been rounded. As a result, totals may differ slightly from 100%