Unidad de Continuidad Asistencial Primaria-Interna del Hospital Universitario de Guadalajara (UCAPI)10 años de experiencia

Abstract

Health care is carried out, mostly, following a conventional model, in which primary care and specialised care act as almost isolated compartments, with severe deficiencies in the relationship between both levels of care. This reality directly impacts on the quality of patient care, on the present overloaded healthcare circuits and on the consumption of the Healthcare System´s resources. As a result of the aforementioned situation, in 2006, the Internal Medicine Department of the University Hospital of Guadalajara, created the Primary Care-Internal Medicine Continuity Unit (UCAPI). This new clinical unit involves a reorganization of the structure, which permits to combine the conventional care model of this speciality with the new one. The established synergy favours the coordination with Primary Care through the figure of the consultant internist. This new model requires four basics elements to be in place: telephone consulting, clinical meetings with primary care teams, self-management of agendas as well as integration of the assistance in the medical office with the use of day hospital and conventional inpatient beds. With this new model, it is possible to improve the care of patients with multiple chronic diseases and that of those in which diagnosis must not be delayed thus, avoiding patients going to the hospital emergency department and optimizing hospitalization resources.