Is continuity of care important?

It has been shown that regular check-ups between a patient and the same doctor have numerous positive benefits for the patient, the doctor, and the overall health system.

These benefits include:¹

1. Reduction in all-cause mortality,
2. Greater patient satisfaction with services,
3. Improved adherence to medical advice and uptake of preventive medicines,
4. Lower use of hospital care, and
5. A reduction in overall healthcare costs.

Over the years though there has been a decline in the continuity of care between patients and the same doctor, due in part to:¹

1. Expansion of larger practices and the prioritizing of rapid access over continuity,
2. General practitioners only working part-time, and
3. The difficulty to recruiting general practitioners to a practice.

Doctors value seeing patients regularly, especially if they have serious complex (multiple) issues or psychological problems and consider it rewarding seeing the patients’ condition stabilize or improve throughout the years.¹

A recent study looking at routinely collected patient data showed that smaller practices have generally high scores in terms of patient and doctor satisfaction (in terms of regular check-ups) in comparison with larger practices.¹

The study also showcased that the satisfaction scores for larger practices could be increased with improved communication between the patient and the different doctors that they may see at a larger practice.¹

Reference:

Hull S; Williams C; Schofield P; Boomla K; and Ashworth M. (2022) ‘Measuring continuity of care in general practice: a comparison of two methods using routinely collected data’ British Journal of General Practice  doi.org/10.3399/BJGP.2022.0043

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