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Continuum of Care

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The United States health care system can be somewhat complicated and often have some barriers or limitations to care. The continuum of care is one of the concepts that is applied to prevent the limitations within the system. Continuum of care is defined as: A range of services developed and organized to address the variety of needs individuals have as they age. This concept recognizes and considers the availability and extent of short-term and long-term care systems and services in the community and in institutional settings. Included in the continuum of care are residential alternatives, in-home care, community programs and institutional services. (Buckeye Hills-Hocking Valley Regional Development …show more content…

(Healy & McKee, 2001)
Community Health System Provision Another function of the hospital is to support the community’s health care services; this stipulates that HUMC not monopolize all the health services within the locality. HUMC share resources with the health care system surrounding it as well as play a part in community initiatives.
Administration
Finally, the services of the hospital are organized by the administration. The administration is responsible for managing and coordinating activities in addition to creating policies for the hospital. With a complex health system such as HUMC and other hospitals that offers services that are based on the continuum of care concept, there are critical issues among stakeholders. A stakeholder is “a person or group that has an investment, share, or interest in something, as a business or industry” (Dictionary.com, 2010). Three stakeholders that are affected by the continuum of care concept, not specifically HUMC, health care services in general are patients, providers, employers, and payers, such as a health insurance company. As stated in the Duke University Quality Improvement Module, providers tend to view quality in a technical sense – accuracy of diagnosis, appropriateness of therapy, resulting outcome. Second, payers focus on cost-effectiveness. Third, employers want to keep costs down and get employees back to work immediately. Last but not least,

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