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Timeliness of Care

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The Patient and Health Care System: Perspectives on High-Quality Care

Abstract

Timeliness of care is defined by the National Academy of Medicine as “reducing waits and sometimes harmful delays for both those who receive and those who give care”. Whether the lack of timeliness occurs in the evaluation or the treatment phase of health care, either can lead to adverse outcomes. Delays in care can further be contextualized into delays of emergent, urgent, acute, subacute, and chronic care with timeliness measured in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years, depending on the urgency of the medical condition (Table. The Spectrum of Timeliness). The first step to timely care is access to health care. Once health care is accessed, health care providers and the systems they work in need to evaluate and treat their patients in a timely fashion. In this chapter, we look at issues revolving around the timely access to health care in both the acute and chronic care settings. We then examine the effect of timely care on patients, providers, and the health care system. Finally, we look at best practices in timely care as well as consider future directions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. UT Southwestern Division of Hospital Medicine at Parkland Hospital, Department of Internal Medicine, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA

    Stephen J. Harder & Eugene S. Chu

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  1. Stephen J. Harder
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  2. Eugene S. Chu
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Correspondence to Eugene S. Chu .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Internal Medicine, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA

    Pranavi V. Sreeramoju

  2. The University of Chicago Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA

    Stephen G. Weber

  3. Independent Engagement Specialist and Patient Family Advisor, Brookline, MA, USA

    Alexis A. Snyder

  4. Department of Internal Medicine, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA

    Lynne M. Kirk

  5. Quality, Safety and Outcomes Education, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA

    William G. Reed

  6. Quality and Clinical Effectiveness, Parkland Health and Hospital System, Dallas, TX, USA

    Beverly A. Hardy-Decuir

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Harder, S.J., Chu, E.S. (2020). Timeliness of Care. In: Sreeramoju, P., Weber, S., Snyder, A., Kirk, L., Reed, W., Hardy-Decuir, B. (eds) The Patient and Health Care System: Perspectives on High-Quality Care. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46567-4_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46567-4_9

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