Assessing the Practice of Laboratory Medicine

Extract

The healthcare continuum has been depicted in a number of ways in an effort to understand and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare. Numerous continuum models have evolved over the years including the use of service levels: e.g., prevention, acute care, long-term care; academic levels, e.g., health science center, community hospital, clinic; and provider levels, e.g., physician, CLS, nursing, pharmacy, just to name a few. The provider model is of particular interest to those in the CLS profession. The primary manner in which this continuum is modeled is to organize providers by the focus of their work, e.g., macro, micro. Aday and colleagues have developed a research continuum model that is divided into five blocks.¹ These five blocks may be described as:

1. Basic disciplinary research that focuses on theory development;

2. Biomedical research that focuses on organisms;

3. Clinical research that focuses on patients;

4. Health services research that focuses on the system or institution; and

5. Public health research that focuses on the community, e.g., environment, population.

A modification of this continuum model helps us understand how and where along this continuum some of the major healthcare disciplines have focused. Figure 1 illustrates where eight of the major healthcare disciplines occupy the continuum of care. There are some exceptions; however, this model reflects the most common of practices seen today.

As expected, physicians work along all aspects of the continuum. For example, physicians are involved in developing theory about disease states and treatment models as well as human…