For technical notes, please see page 15 of the Data Dictionary.

Interpretive Notes

Tips to help you understand the data and put it in context.

• The ‘average’ patient or population has a SAMI score of 1.0.
  • A SAMI score of 1.40 can be interpreted as an expected need for primary health care that is 40% higher than in the average patient.
  • A SAMI score of 0.88 can be interpreted as a 12% lower-than-average expected need.
• Patients who have very complex needs for specialized care (i.e., oncologist for cancer, endocrinologists for diabetes) might not have higher-than-average needs for PRIMARY care and therefore may not contribute to a higher SAMI score.
• Among CHCs, where SAMI scores have been reported for several years, some patient populations have scores of nearly 3.0 (very high), with scores of 1.4 considered to be low.
• The range of SAMI scores among FHTs contributing data to D2D 3.0 was 0.73 to 1.2 with a provincial range of 0.95 to 1.84 (depending on the type of primary care model).
• Primary care documentation can theoretically affect SAMI score. If providers routinely use the same, non-specific code for visits by patients for different issues (e.g., “visit for medication renewal” instead of a more specific, diagnosis-related code) the SAMI score could theoretically under-estimate the needs for primary care. However, the scoring system has been validated in both Ontario and Manitoba and shown to be very stable, even with the current state of primary care documentation.

Steps to Improvement

Since SAMI score is essentially a description of patient primary care needs, it is not a reflection of quality of care and there is no “target” measure teams could or should strive for. Therefore, any improvement efforts are probably most usefully targeted at data quality, not at changing the SAMI score for a team.

Data Quality Actions

Tips to help you understand the quality of your data and, if necessary, take steps to improve it. If addressing SAMI score accuracy is an immediate priority for your team:

• Work with engaged clinicians to increase the specificity of diagnosis data in your billing processes.
• Other ideas: please share!