Continuum of Care: Definition, Benefits & Example

“Continuum care” refers to providing patients with coordinated and consistent health care across various services. Nurses who learnt the basic skills from accredited LPN programs are essential in ensuring patients can move seamlessly between different forms of care for patients within a continuum setting.

What is the Continuum of Care?

To understand the continuum, it is necessary to view medical services holistically. The continuum can include changes over a patient’s lifespan and interventions targeted towards certain conditions.

Healthcare that extends over time from prevention through treatment, rehabilitation, and maintenance – each service type enhancing another for more efficient and effective acute care.

Related:-Explain Benefits of Care Cordination

All healthcare providers involved must be able to offer comprehensive long-term care. Knowing about any prior treatments or tests a patient has undergone will enable healthcare providers to provide better assistance:

• Concerns raised by patients should be addressed appropriately.
• Building upon previous treatments
• Stay away from redundancies.

According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, health care professional comprise the largest share of healthcare workers in the US. According to estimates by the World Health Organization, practical nurses and midwives could contain nearly 50% of global healthcare staff by 2022.

AACN also reports that health care providers providers most long-term and hospital care in America, serving patients with unique requirements as primary providers.

Nurses play an indispensable role in patient care and care coordination services, with longstanding associations like the American Nurses Association advocating to bring attention to this aspect of nursing practice.

Example of Continuum of Care

Illustrations can help clarify what continuum of care means. Usually associated with older adults and those suffering mental illnesses who require multiple forms of medical treatment, it typically entails preventive care from many different providers along its course. Each step on this continuum offers specific services delivered by various professionals.

Among the numerous types of care are elder care, women’s well-being, hospice care, mental health services, and disease management rehabilitation initiatives & different levels of care.

What Does the Continuum of Care in Healthcare Entail?

Nurses Are at the Core of Healthcare

Nursing plays a wide range of roles within healthcare delivery. Healthcare team help facilitate continuity by interfacing directly with patients and medical professionals to deliver quality of life in healthcare.

• Building relationships with patients and their families to address any changing concerns or needs they have is paramount in meeting our shared goal of improving patient care.
• Individual patients can advocate for treatments and procedures tailored to their specific needs.
• Patients must be provided with information on the next phase of their care as they leave the hospital.
• Assuring other healthcare professionals involved with patient medical care know treatments performed and those yet necessary.
• Care plans can assist patients in managing multiple chronic conditions simultaneously.

Nurse Practitioners in the Continuum of Care in healthcare

Nurse practitioners (NPs), as advanced nursing professionals focused on holistic health and the continuum of healthcare delivery, are in an excellent position to play an integral part in supporting it. Here are a few reasons NPs play an essential role.

Care for the Whole Person

Nurse practitioners (NPs) offer holistic healthcare that addresses medical issues and wellness promotion, quality education, and counseling services to meet various patient needs.

Specializations

Nurse practitioners (NPs) can specialize in various areas, ranging from adult gerontology to family care. With these areas of specialization comes an array of personal care transitions and changes for a particular group, allowing NPs to address them efficiently.

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Focus on Primary Care

Nurse practitioners specialize in caring for specific populations; however, many also provide some form of primary care services to a broader patient base in nursing field & residential care facilities. According to the American Association of Nurse practitioner, 88% are certified in this specialty. In comparison, 70% provide it as part of their clinical practice. Primary care providers can facilitate various treatments and procedures by their clinical experience that aid their journey toward good health care. To learn the primary and secondary care, students can enroll in the best nursing colleges in Illinois for practical nursing program & acquire a hands-on experience.