The majority of elderly patients, 73 percent, said they would want coordinated care from a team of providers, but only 27 percent of patients said they receive this kind of care, according to a survey released by the John A. Hartford Foundation, an organization dedicated to the research and education of geriatric medicine.
Of the patients who reported receiving coordinated team care, 83 percent said team care improved their health.
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Forty-eight percent of respondents said they would consider switching primary care physicians if they heard about a provider who offers team care.
"The weakness of care coordination in our healthcare system represents a clear and present danger to many older patients, causing avoidable harm, errors, complications, overtreatment and hospital readmissions," said Christopher Langston, PhD, program director of the John A. Hartford Foundation, in a news release. "Team care is still a work in progress. Despite disappointing medical home demonstration results recently reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, we believe that enhanced primary care can be a key part of the solution. The fact that older adults say that team care improved their health is very significant. We should build on this finding, improve the model and make team care available to more patients who can benefit from it."
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