Table 1

Effects of the team-based CQI intervention on VIP dimensions of practice management (scale scores have been converted into percentage of maximum score; minutes are raw means).

Dimensions of practice management	Number of indicators	α	Intervention pre-test n = 26	Intervention post-test n = 24	Control pre-test n = 23	Control post-test n = 21	GLM uni-variate
Accessibility and availability
Time in minutes before practice picks up phone (po)	1	-	5.9	6.0	6.0	6.2	0.916
Practice accessibility (po)	6	0.71	77	78	79	76	0.228
Organisation of surgeries/availability (po)	6	0.72	83	82	85	81	0.253

Medical care
Supply of preventive care	9	0.53	60	73	58	69	0.485
Delegation of medical technical tasks	16	0.75	61	62	53	56	0.703
Delegation of health promotion tasks	7	0.71	39	46	38	39	0.402

Infrastructure
Practice facilities (po)	4	0.70	79	79	76	79	0.744
Hygiene and facilities in treatment room	8	0.36	55	63	60	58	0.096
Advanced medical equipment in the practice	7	0.52	49	48	46	45	0.883
Laboratory facilities in the practice	8	0.65	58	60	63	61	0.491
Organisation of the practice	11	0.53	56	60	58	61	0.997

Team
Meeting time with practice assistant (minutes)	2	-	33	35	50	34	0.640
Collaboration in GP group	11	0.62	67	65	66	70	0.163
Minutes/week regular meeting time with colleagues	1	-	42	46	38	35	0.334
Agreements on collaboration with primary care partners	4	0.35	24	26	24	33	0.109
Agreements on collaboration with hospital (specialists)	7	0.57	50	58	58	63	0.962

Computerisation
Degree of computerisation of the practice (IT)	5	0.70	56	67	71	71	0.201
Electronic communication (hospital, pharmacy)	5	0.59	48	62	50	68	0.494

Quality and safety
Audit, assessment and other QI in the GP group	8	0.65	44	48	38	40	0.505
Quality assurance in the practice	10	0.57	35	45	34	46	0.931

po = patient opinion.
QI = quality improvement.
GLM = general linear models.