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- Page navigation anchor for Benefits of continuity of careBenefits of continuity of careWe read Maarsingh et al.’s important article (August issue) with interest and congratulate them on 17 years follow up.
However it is disappointing that they could write of continuity of care that: “ the evidence about its benefits, especially when it comes to health outcomes is still weak”. We do not believe this statement can be justified academically. In our article “Improving Continuity of care: THE clinical challenge”,1 recently published in InnovAiT we list research showing twenty aspects of continuity which are beneficial to patients, six features beneficial to GPs, and five features of continuity beneficial to society. We also describe three adverse effects of continuity. On balance, research reveals substantial overall benefits in health outcomes from continuity of care in general practice.
Reference
1. Pereira Gray D, Sidaway-Lee K, White E, Thorne A Evans P. Improving continuity: THE clinical challenge. InnovAiT 2016. doi:10.1177/1755738016654504. Epub ahead of print.
Competing Interests: None declared. - Page navigation anchor for Continuity of care in primary care and association with survival in older peopleContinuity of care in primary care and association with survival in older peopleAfter reading the interesting article, a number of questions remained unanswered.1. The graph in Appendix I shows a striking difference in cumulative survival for participants following 6 cycles. How can this be explained?2. From the group with a COC of 1.0 in 1998, only 34% were left in 2009, whereas the other groups score around 50%. This seems to contradict the article's conclusion.3. No explanation for the relation found was given in the article. Are there any suggestions?4. How can we benefit from the conclusion? The article already mentions that the reason why some patients are changing more often their GPs than others is not known. That is a pity indeed, however I estimate that most changes are not because it is the patients wish. More often it will be due to patients' relocation, but (if I take my own situation as an example) in most cases because the GP moves or starts another job. Maybe a recommendation to Health authorities would be appropriate that GPs should do their jobs in the same place with the same patients as long as possible. No more job-hopping and no recruiting of specialists or scientists from the existing GP-pool.Competing Interests: None declared.