How Important is a Care Plan?

• Posted onCarpeVITA Admin
• in Genomics, Participate, Personalize, Predict, Prevent, Wellness
• onMarch 4, 2016
• No Comments.

How important is a care plan? A care plan is essential. It lays out the plan of action a person needs to take in partnership with their care provider(s) to be able to achieve the outcomes they want for their health and wellness. Effective care plans help patients lead independent lives, have a higher quality of life, participate in their healthcare, and treat and/or prevent health issues.

Types of Care Plans

Care Plans for High Risk Patients

Plans for high-risk patients are very effective in helping them through episodes and care transitions. These plans serve to:

• Assess levels of care that are necessary
• Evaluate and consider the services and products that are available
• Empower patients to participate in their care with goals
• Improve the quality of care
• Improve outcomes
• Improve patient engagement
• Improve patient satisfaction

Care Plans for Wellness

Care plans don’t have to be reserved for those who already have health issues. They are also important for people who are working toward a life of wellness. To achieve wellness, you need a plan of action. You need to know what you should be doing and what you shouldn’t be doing to reach the level of health you are seeking. A care plan provides that roadmap.

What a Care Plan Includes

The best care plans are goal-oriented and are written in common language so that they can be easily understood by all parties. They also leave room for flexibility and change.

Care plans typically include an ongoing and sequential approach as well as the measurement tactics that will be used to determine the effectiveness of the plan and the indicators that allude to when the plan needs to be changed. Here is what most care plans include:

• The current state of the patient and why they are seeking medical care, even if that reason is to prevent issues from occurring.
• Any diagnosis that has been made and the symptoms and issues that diagnosis is causing.
• The suggested course of action necessary to either treat or prevent an issue (or multiple issues), which might include a medication plan and/or self-care goals.
• The methods that will be used to measure progress.
• The indicators that represent the need to change the plan.

Ensuring Your Care Plan is Effective

Comprehensiveness

The more comprehensive and thorough of an evaluation and assessment is performed, the more personalized and effective your care plan will be. More time and effort up front leads to quicker and better outcomes, rather than lost time, money and effort being made on treatments that might not be the most effective.

Personalization

Some care plans are better than others. The best kind of care plan is one that is truly personalized to the patient’s needs and lifestyle and will include the following in addition to the five parts listed above:

• The patient’s concerns and goals
• Strong consideration of the patient’s lifestyle
• All healthcare provider(s) who will need to work together to provide the care needed

Prediction & Prevention

Care plans aren’t just for treating existing issues. Everyone should have a care plan because we should all be working toward preventing health issues from coming up. Treatment is difficult and isn’t always effective. Never getting a disease, on the other hand, is the most effective treatment available.

CarpeVITA’s personalized care plans use prediction methods such as genomics to predict and then prevent health issues. This is the height of personalization and prevention and it allows for much improved health outcomes.

Patient Participation

The more involved the patient is in the assessment process, the better the plan will be. According to a January 2016 HINtelligence Report, “patient engagement is the most significant barrier to care plan success.” Care plans simply will not work without the daily participation of the patient because it is through healthy lifestyle changes that most individuals get the results they seek when it comes to their health.

Consistent Monitoring

Care plans should be reviewed in increments set by the healthcare provider to determine the effectiveness of the plan and whether or not all aspects of the plan are still appropriate. What isn’t working should be revised and what is working should be continued. A flexible plan is an effective plan.

Ask your healthcare provider about setting up a personalized care plan so that you can put your health on the road to wellness. Check out a CarpeVITA Health Network near you!

Sources:

http://www.hin.com/library/CarePlans2016.pdf

http://nursinglink.monster.com/training/articles/549-care-plans-worthwhile-or-worthless

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/social-care-and-support-guide/Pages/care-plans.aspx

http://canhr.org/factsheets/nh_fs/html/fs_careplan.htm

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