BACKGROUND Recently, the Nijmegen Continuity Questionnaire (NCQ) was developed. It aims to measure continuity of care from the patient perspective across primary and secondary care settings. Initial pilot testing proved promising. AIM To further examine the validity, discriminative ability, and reliability of the NCQ. DESIGN A prospective psychometric instrument validation study in primary...

INTRODUCTION A Continuity of Cancer Care pilot project was established in two urban general practices, with the goal of improving cancer care and patient access to services. Practice nurses were engaged as coordinators to implement a model of care and patient navigation to offer continued and consistent care, and to assist the patient to navigate their cancer experience. AIM The aim was to ev...

BACKGROUND Few empirical studies have been conducted on the continuity of rehabilitation services, despite the fact that it may affect clinical outcomes, patient satisfaction, the perception of quality, and safety. OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to explore experiences and perceptions of inpatients receiving physical rehabilitation in an acute care hospital and how these experiences may ...

he model of the academic health science centre (AHSC) arose decades ago in the United States,1 and is now internationally well established, with 17 centres in Canada, eight in Holland, five in the United Kingdom, two in Singapore, but none in Australia. An AHSC is where a leading university joins with a major tertiary health care provider in a tripartite mission of excellence in clinical servic...

OBJECTIVES The aims of this research were to generate a set of time-variant measures of continuity of outpatient care using administrative data, and to evaluate the validity of these measures for persons in the community with serious mental illness (SMI) who use public mental health services. DATA SOURCES Individuals with SMI were identified using multistage random sampling from shelters, str...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Traditional indices of continuity of care typically capture frequency of physician visits but lack information regarding how patients themselves perceive continuity of care. The present study's objectives were (1) to examine the meaning of continuity of care from the perspective of patients with diabetes and (2) to understand the factors that enhance or detract from co...

BACKGROUND Continuity of care is an essential aspect of quality in general practice. This study is the first systematic follow-up of Finnish primary care patients' assessments with regard to personal continuity of care. AIM To ascertain whether patient-reported longitudinal personal continuity of care is related to patient characteristics and their consultation experiences, and how this had c...

PURPOSE We wanted to undertake a critical review of the medical literature regarding the relationships between interpersonal continuity of care and the outcomes and cost of health care. METHODS A search of the MEDLINE database from 1966 through April 2002 was conducted by the primary author to find original English language articles focusing on interpersonal continuity of patient care. The ar...