Continuity-of-care measures. An analytic and empirical comparison.

The authors compared four different continuity-of-care measures recently suggested in the literature. First, an analytic comparison is made and useful inequalities are derived. Then the continuity indexes are applied to an extensive data material from a Swedish ambulatory care center. The four indexes give fairly similar results, and the basic finding is the substantially higher index values for elderly patients. Finally, computed index values are compared with what could be expected under a scheme of random assignment of patients to doctors.