ArticleAnnals of family medicine2026
Association of General Practice Continuity With Hospital Admissions and Costs: A Retrospective Study.
Article in Annals of family medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeContinuity of care has been associated with lower health care use and costs. When general practitioners (GPs) serve as gatekeepers to hospital care, having an ongoing relationship with a GP may promote more efficient care and reduce urgent referrals, thereby lowering costs. We examined the association of 2 conceptually distinct measures of continuity in general practice with both urgent hospital admissions and hospital costs.
methodsWe conducted a retrospective cohort study using routinely collected health care data from 100,450 adults in 48 Dutch general practices (2013-2018) who were linked to national hospital admission and cost records (2019). Continuity was separately measured by duration of GP-patient relationship (time registered with the practice) and by density of GP contacts (Herfindahl-Hirschman index). We assessed associations with urgent admissions and log-transformed hospital costs using multilevel logistic and linear models, adjusting for sex, age, comorbidity, migration background, and income.
resultsCompared with individuals registered with their practice for 0 to 5 years, those registered longer had 9% to 21% lower odds of urgent hospital admission, with the lowest odds seen in the group registered 15 to 20 years (adjusted odds ratio = 0.79; 95% CI, 0.70-0.88). No significant association was found between higher density of GP contacts and urgent admissions. All groups registered longer than 5 years had significantly lower hospital costs, with the largest model-based reduction (-39.7%) in the group registered 10 to 15 years. Higher density of GP contacts was also associated with lower costs, with an adjusted relative reduction of 6% to 7% in total hospital costs.
conclusionsLong-standing continuity of care in general practice among adult patients is associated with reduced urgent hospital admissions and health care costs in the Netherlands. These findings highlight the potential value of sustained GP-patient relationships in improving hospital outcomes.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.