Continuity would be achieved with patient held records

doi:10.1136/bmj.324.7341.851/a

BMJ 2002;324:851 ( 6 April )

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Continuity would be achieved with patient held records

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

EDITOR $---$ Krogstad et al write about the subject of continuity of care.¹ The need to balance division of tasks with coordinationof tasks applies as much to primary as to hospital care. Bothdepend on developing team responsibility, which means includingpatients as active members of theteam.

Obviously patients cannot depend always on one exhausted professional but should relate to teams small enough for them toform continuing personal relationships. Within teams the onlyinvariable members are the patients. If they are not actuallythere they must be represented by their narrative medical records,which should be a cumulative, organised story. To ensure thatthese stories are updated and include relevant social and biologicaldata they must be held by and accessible to thepatients.

One measure of continuity is the number of times that people have to repeat their personal stories. This narrative elementneeds to be . . . [Full text of this article]

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Continuity of hospital care: beyond the question of personal contact: Unni Krogstad, Dag Hofoss, and Per Hjortdahl
BMJ 2002 324: 36-38. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]