There exist structural issues in China's healthcare system, where secondary and tertiary medical institutions are more likely to attract medical professionals with advanced academic degrees and high professional qualifications. Guiding the outreach of superior medical resources through a combination of administrative requirements and moderate incentives is an important measure to improve the quality of primary care services in the short term, with personnel outreach as the core priority of this initiative.

The outreach of specialists from county-level hospitals is one of the key measures to strengthen primary-level medical services. This study analyzed the potential classes of specialist outreach activities in a certain city and explored the impact of different classes on the job perception and competence of primary care providers, aiming to provide references for improving the practice of personnel downward mobility.

The study was conducted in a city of Shandong Province in October 2022, using multistage cluster sampling. First, 6 counties/county-level cities were selected; next, 6 townships/towns/subdistricts were randomly sampled from each of them, totaling 36 sites. Questionnaires were distributed to all on-duty medical staff (general practitioners, nurses, public health workers, etc.) on the day of investigation at sampled township health centers/community health service centers, plus 15 village doctors (active in family doctor teams) from each institution. Data were collected via a general information questionnaire, an evaluation of medical personnel outreach practices scale (assessing opportunities for case discussions, outpatient consultations, joint home visits, and training with higher-hospital specialists), a job satisfaction scale, and a diabetes management competence scale. Latent class analysis (LCA) identified patterns of outreach participation, and multiple linear regression examined how these latent classes affected primary staff's job satisfaction and diabetes management competence. A multi-stage cluster sampling method was used to select primary care providers in a certain city. Data were collected using a general information questionnaire, an evaluation questionnaire on personnel outreach practices, a job satisfaction scale, and a diabetes management capability scale. Latent class analysis was conducted on the participation of primary care providers in outreach activities, and multiple linear regression was used to analyze the impact of potential classes of outreach on the job satisfaction and diabetes management competence of primary medical personnel.

A total of 2 233 primary medical personnel were surveyed. Their participation in specialist downward mobility activities could be clustered into 3 potential classes: the comprehensive support group (31.66%, n=707), the in-hospital support group (16.93%, n=378), and the overall support deficiency group (51.41%, n=1 148). Results of multiple linear regression analysis showed that compared with the overall support deficiency group, both the comprehensive support group (B=4.798, P<0.001) and the in-hospital support group (B=3.241, P=0.002) positively predicted job satisfaction scores. Additionally, both the comprehensive support group (B=3.922, P<0.001) and the in-hospital support group (B=1.659, P<0.001) positively predicted diabetes management capability scores.

There are 3 potential categories of primary medical personnel's participation in specialist downward mobility activities. The richness of practical support activities varies, and more abundant support activities are positively correlated with job satisfaction and diabetes management competence. It is suggested to focus on specific and diversified support content in the downward mobility of specialists to truly improve the professional fulfillment and diabetes management competence of primary care providers.