Healthcare fragmentation, multimorbidity, potentially inappropriate medication, and mortality: a Danish nationwide cohort study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Patients with multimorbidity are frequent users of healthcare, but fragmented care may lead to suboptimal treatment. Yet, this has never been examined across healthcare sectors on a national scale. We aimed to quantify care fragmentation using various measures and to analyze the associations with patient outcomes.

Methods

We conducted a register-based nationwide cohort study with 4.7 million Danish adult citizens. All healthcare contacts to primary care and hospitals during 2018 were recorded. Clinical fragmentation indicators included number of healthcare contacts, involved providers, provider transitions, and hospital trajectories. Formal fragmentation indices assessed care concentration, dispersion, and contact sequence. The patient outcomes were potentially in

SUBMITTER: Prior A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10426166 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature