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In Brief
Validation of 2 New Measures of Continuity of Care Based on Year-to-Year Follow-up With Known Providers of Health Care
Pierre Tousignant , and colleagues
Background This study assesses two new measures of continuity of care, both versions of known provider continuity, which are easily measured in administrative databases. The measures capture the concentration of care from year to year with multiple physicians (KPC-MP) or a particular physician (KPC-PP), making them a potentially valuable and low cost-way to follow the effects of changes favoring group practice on continuity of care.
What This Study Found Analyzing survey and medical records data from 765 patients with diabetes or cardiovascular disease attending 28 primary care clinics in Quebec, Canada, researchers found KPC-MP was significantly related with a validated measure of overall care coordination and a combined continuity score summarizing five different validated survey measures. This is the first time a continuity measure that can be obtained from administrative databases has been found to be associated with a patient-reported measure of care coordination. Conversely, KPC-PP (year-to-year continuity with the physician seen most often) did not appear strongly related to patient-perceived measures of continuity.
Implications
- At a time of major primary care reorganization involving multiple health care professionals, KPC measures based on administrative databases could become a valuable way to do research on continuity.