A Hybrid Recommender System for Patient-Doctor Matchmaking in Primary Care

Primary care serves as patients' first point of contact with the healthcare system and is a continuing focal point of comprehensive, accessible, and community-based care [1]. More than just a gate-keeping process for specialist referrals, it has been widely recognized for its focus on caring for the longterm health of patients rather than solely for treating specific diseases or conditions. As such, primary care helps deliver more equitable health outcomes across populations and meets 80-90% of individuals' health needs throughout their lives [2]. To this end, a recent special report from the Economist stated that "good primary care is an essential precondition for a decent healthcare system" [3]. The World Health Organization (WHO) emphasized several defining features for effective and socially productive primary care, including comprehensiveness, person-centeredness, and continuity of care [4]. In particular, person-centeredness refers to the "clinical method of participatory democracy" that allows patients to participate in decisions that affect their health.