Which strategies help maintain continuity of care when staffing is limited?

• A. Hire only full-time staff, eliminate on-call coverage, and defer non-urgent cases indefinitely.
• B. Increase caseloads for all staff without training, and cancel visits.
• C. Remove support tools and rely on memory.
• D. Cross-training, on-call coverage, temporary staff, adjusted caseloads, and prioritizing urgent cases.

Answer: (D)

When staffing is limited, keeping continuity of care hinges on building resilience into the team and ensuring coverage remains steady even when some members are away. Cross-training lets staff handle essential tasks across roles, so care doesn’t stall if a key person is unavailable. On-call coverage provides a backup plan to fill sudden gaps without leaving patients without support. Temporary staff can fill short-term shortages without overburdening permanent personnel. Adjusted caseloads help keep workloads manageable so clinicians can maintain attention to each patient, and prioritizing urgent cases ensures those most in need receive timely care while less urgent tasks are scheduled appropriately. Put together, these strategies preserve patient-provider relationships and ongoing access to services, which is central to continuity of care. Rigid approaches like limiting coverage, increasing workloads without training, or removing tools would create gaps, delays, or errors, undermining continuity.