BMJ 2002;324:36-38 ( 5 January )

Education and debate

Continuity of hospital care: beyond the question of personal contact

Unni Krogstad, hospital researcher ^a, Dag Hofoss, senior researcher ^a, Per Hjortdahl, professor ^b. 

^a HELTEF Foundation for Health Services Research, Central Hospital of Akershus, N-1474 Nordbyhagen, Norway, ^b Department of General Practice and Community Medicine, University of Oslo, N-0316 Oslo, Norway

Correspondence to: U Krogstad ukrogstad@heltef.no

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Patients' experiences have placed continuity of hospital care on the agenda in Norway¹ as in other countries. ^{2 3} Although continuity of care has a long history in the literature of primary care,^4-9 the concept is not often related to hospital care. Most of such publications deal with long term hospitalisation,¹⁰ psychiatry,¹¹ and nursing¹² and focus on personal continuitywhere one clinician is responsible for each patient. The reality of acute treatment and care in the hospital environment is ignored, and there is confusion over the concept of continuity of hospital care. ^{13 14}

Table Removed (Available Only in the Full Text)

Continuity of care is important for patients' satisfaction in primary and hospital care. ^{1 15} To compensate for the fragmented nature of specialised hospital care, many hospitals try to imitate primary care by designating one carer to a particular patient. This kind of personal continuity is important, but it does not ensure that patients receive the best treatment during their hospital stay. . . . [Full text of this article]

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