Why a consistent provider is important for your child’s health care

As a parent, you know that a world that is nurturing and predictable helps children develop emotional security. You likely wouldn’t want important people in your child’s life — teachers, coaches, and friends — to interact with your son or daughter without knowing their wonderfully unique skills, traits, and challenges. Why then, risk a more superficial relationship with the pediatrician or family medicine provider who:

• Makes sure your child receives important immunizations on time
• Carefully follows their growth and development milestones
• Takes care of them when sick or injured

Seeing the same health-care provider (known as continuity of care) throughout the childhood years — from infancy through adolescence — offers many benefits. As much as possible, it’s important for parents to make this a priority.

Continuity helps children

There are many reasons having a consistent a health-care provider is helpful for children…and their parents (we’ll get to that part later).

• Seeing the same face within a sometimes scary doctor’s office provides comfort for toddlers and children…and adolescents too, although they might not admit it!
• Continuity in infancy and toddlerhood can lead to improved care, especially given the rapid changes in growth, diet, development, and safety needs.
  • Toddlers specifically seek and are comforted by consistency, so seeing the same health-care providers plays well to their developmental stage. It allows them to relax more in the office and better demonstrate their true capacities around skills like speech. This helps the provider make the best possible evaluation.
  • Continuity helps the provider track infants’ and toddlers’ development over time, taking into account the nuances within each child’s developmental journey.
  • Every stage of infancy and childhood comes with necessary adjustments in diet, safety measures, discipline, and sleep. A provider well acquainted with your child can offer an individually tailored approach to these issues for your child.

Why building rapport matters

Continuity of care through childhood helps build a rapport that leads to trust between your child and their provider. This trust is critical, especially in pre-teens and adolescents.

• Trust in their provider increases the likelihood that your child will open up honestly about tough topics like bullying, drug use, internet targeting, sexual orientation and activity, mental health, and their true concerns and questions. Trust leads to vastly better care.
• Teens and tweens often feel alone during these years, even within supportive family settings. Their well-known provider represents someone in their court during this difficult time of transition in their life.
• When your child trusts their provider they are much more inclined to follow and stick to a suggested treatment plan, better addressing any conditions or illnesses they are facing.

Continuity helps parents

Being cared for by the same provider, not only helps your child, but you as well. When a health-care provider has a better understanding of your family’s dynamic environment, health history, and prior and ongoing challenges, they can explore your concerns with more context and depth. And when you don’t need to reacquaint yourself and your child with a new provider each visit, there is more time to discuss your concerns and questions.

This can be especially helpful during times of major transition in your adult life. Whether it’s having a baby, moving to another home, changing jobs, navigating your own health issues, or the myriad of other challenges that come with being an adult and a parent, it’s helpful for your own mental health and comfort to have your child’s provider as a constant.

Continuity helps providers better serve your child

Believe it or not, providers value consistent relationships with their patients as much as patients want those relationships with their medical providers. Continuity allows them to provide the best care possible which is a priority for every provider.

Diseases can evolve over time. When a provider knows a patient well, they are able to pay careful attention to nuances of the disease and catch any changes or progressions.

Continuity also helps providers track the status of longer-term issues like post-NICU transition, depression, anxiety, migraines, post-concussive syndrome, autism, developmental delay, and chronic medical syndromes.

Provider relationships in a changing world

We live in a world of packed schedules that is increasingly driven by convenience. Although from time to time it may be necessary to schedule an appointment with the provider who is available--especially if your child is facing an emergent illness or injury — seeing a consistent provider for well visits or check-ups, is an important way to prioritize your child’s health.

Are you looking for a health-care provider for you child? Find a provider with Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health.