BACKGROUND Continuity of care (COC) has received attention over the past decade. COC has also become increasingly important for hospital managers and policy makers because of competitive health care market conditions. The purpose of this study was to assess the association between hospital charges and patients' continuity of care-assessed by three indices of continuity of care-among outpatients...

Continuity is a part of high-quality patient care. The purpose of this study was to analyse what factors are important in the continuity of patients’ care, and how well continuity is achieved in different stages of the care of day surgical patients. Day surgery has become significantly more prevalent in the past few decades, and in order for it to be carried out successfully, continuity in care...

BACKGROUND Korea's rapidly aging population has led to a rise in the prevalence of knee osteoarthritis (which reached upwards of 21.3% in 2017) in elderly people aged 65 years and over. Most patients with knee osteoarthritis require ongoing management in the community or through primary care. Continuity of care is a desirable attribute of primary care. However, previous studies on the associati...

BACKGROUND Family carers, as a "shadow workforce", are foundational to the day-to-day integration of health service delivery for older family members living with complex health needs. This paper utilises Haggerty's model of continuity of care to explore the contribution of family carers' to the provision of care and support for an older family member's chronic condition within the context of he...

BACKGROUND The traditional concept of continuity of care, i.e. care from the cradle to the grave, is no longer sustainable in modern society. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to propose a definition of 'continuity of care' based on the experiences of a group of practising Australian GPs. METHOD Five focus group discussions were conducted to explore the understanding and practice of conti...

BACKGROUND The study goal was to assess indices of continuity of care in the primary care setting and their association with health outcomes and healthcare services utilization, given the reported importance of continuity regarding quality of care and healthcare utilization. METHODS The study included a random sample of enrollees from Clalit Health Services 19 years-of-age or older who visite...

BACKGROUND Continuity of care is widely acknowledged as important for patients with multi-morbidity but simple, service-orientated indices cannot capture the full impact of continuity in complex care delivery systems. The patient's perspective is important to assess outcomes fully and this is challenging because generic measures of patient-perceived continuity are lacking. We investigate the Ch...