Continuity of Care: A Primer for Family Medicine Residencies

This article reviews continuity of care as it applies to family medicine training programs. We discuss the various types of continuity and issues surrounding the measurement of continuity. A generally agreed upon definition of patient-sided and resident-sided continuity is presented to allow programs to begin to collect the necessary data. Especially within resident training programs, intricacies associated with maintaining continuity of care, such as empanelment, resident turnover, and scheduling, are discussed. The importance of right-sizing resident panels is highlighted, and a mechanism for accomplishing this is presented. The recent ACGME requirements represent a cultural shift from measuring resident experience based on volume to measuring resident continuity. This cultural shift forces family medicine training programs to adapt their various systems, policies, and procedures to emphasize continuity. We hope this manuscript's review of several facets of contuinuity, some unique to training programs, helps programs ensure compliance with the ACGME requirements.PMID:38055847 | DOI:10.22454/FamMed.2023.913197

Source: Famly Medicine - December 6, 2023 Category: Primary Care Authors: Gregory M Garrison Matthew R Meunier Christopher L Boswell Jason D Greenwood Terri Nordin Kurt B Angstman Source Type: research