The Importance Of In Home Care Continuity For Successful Aging: Research Review

In-home care continuity matters for senior safety, comfort, and quality of life, and that’s why our service is specifically designed to maintain it.

Read on to review the research on the life-changing impacts that come from consistent treatment quality, clear communication, and “long-lasting, customized relationships in team-based care,” or call (915)-250-0177 to speak directly with an in-home care coordinator in El Paso, TX (Ljungholm et al., 2022).

The Life-Changing Impact Of In-Home Care Continuity In El Paso, TX

For our purposes, the term care continuity refers to an ongoing therapeutic relationship with a single in-home care provider.

Maintaining this relationship is important, even as your loved one’s needs or care settings change, as it promotes clear communication, patient comfort, and consistent care quality.

The alternative—where your loved one receives a new in-home care assistant every week, or even every day—is not optimal, as your loved ones must constantly reintroduce themselves, re-explain their care needs, and rely on accurate transfer of information from the previous provider.

At best, this kind of poor care continuity will make your loved ones uncomfortable, as they must welcome a stranger into their home and entrust them with personal care matters. But in many cases, poor care continuity leads to poor care outcomes, as it puts the onus on your loved ones to pass on pertinent information.

Given the wealth of geriatric health research highlights the health benefits of care continuity, this is unacceptable. For example:

• One study by The Annals of Family Medicine found “greater continuity of care is independently associated with lower hospital utilization for seniors with multiple chronic medical conditions” (Bayliss et al., 2015, p. 123)
  
• One study by BMC Geriatrics found in-home care continuity reduces emergency department (ED) presentations and senior mortality risk (Dyer et al., 2022)

Clearly, in-home care continuity matters, but maintaining it can be easier said than done, especially if your family care network is already stretched thin, or your loved ones’ care needs keep changing. But don’t worry—if you live in El Paso, TX, in-home care continuity is just a phone call away.

Improve In-Home Care Continuity In El Paso, TX: Call Always Best Care

Since 1996, Always Best Care has been helping families improve care continuity across the  nation, and today we’re proud to bring the same patient-centric care to families in El Paso, TX.

To improve in-home care continuity, we offer:

• Comprehensive in-home caregiver matchmaking to help build lasting relationships and reduce the need for substitutions.
  
• Unlimited in-home caregiver substitutions to help your loved ones find the perfect caregiver to build a long-term relationship.
  
• In-home care anywhere, so even if your hospital or adult day care center struggles to maintain care continuity, you won’t have to worry, as our professionals help bridge any gaps in care and clarify communications in any setting.
  
• A complete continuum of scalable in-home care services, so your loved ones can stay with the same caregiver, even as their care needs increased over time

To learn more about our in-home care services and get a free quote on any care plan, you can:

• Call (915)-250-0177
• Email [email protected]
• Fill out our contact form
  
  

References

Bayliss, E. A., Ellis, J. L., Shoup, J. A., Zeng, C., McQuillan, D. B., & Steiner, J. F. (2015). Effect of continuity of care on hospital utilization for seniors with multiple medical conditions in an integrated health care system. The Annals of Family Medicine, 13(2), 123-129.

Dyer, S. M., Suen, J., Williams, H., Inacio, M. C., Harvey, G., Roder, D., & Caughey, G. E. (2022). Impact of relational continuity of primary care in aged care: A systematic review. BMC Geriatrics, 22(1), 1-18.

Ljungholm, L., Edin-Liljegren, A., Ekstedt, M., & Klinga, C. (2022). What is needed for continuity of care and how can we achieve it?–Perceptions among multi professionals on the chronic care trajectory. BMC Health Services Research, 22(1), 686.