Continuity of Care in Residency Teaching Practices: Lessons from "Bright Spots"

Continuity of care is a challenge in primary care residency teaching clinics. Resident physicians have competing inpatient and outpatient responsibilities and often spend only 1 to 2 half-days per week in the clinic. Their clinic schedules are often pieced together after the needs of inpatient and specialty rotations are met. Similarly, faculty clinicians often balance limited clinic time with teaching, research, or administrative responsibilities. Seeking approaches to improve continuity of care, we visited 23 internal medicine, family medicine, and pediatric residency clinics across the US. This article highlights strategies to optimize continuity of care pioneered by 3 "bright spot" residency teaching clinics with high-continuity performance. The strategies include adopting a strong continuity culture and patient scheduling algorithms that prioritize continuity, appointing a team continuity anchor, and/or reorganizing resident and faculty schedules to maximize continuity. We hope that these perspectives can assist residency teaching practices to improve continuity of care for their patients.