“Self-care in health is the new black. We’re digitally DIY’ing life, scheduling our own travel and booking restaurant tables, curating our photographs and trading stocks. People are morphing into health consumers, and that requires health engagement which means getting smart about our bodies, our selves, our numbers, and our treatment options. Care plans are an on-ramp to shared and sound decision-making for self-health.”
- Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, MA (Econ.), MHSA
The more and more I understood our current healthcare system, the more I realized a glaring deficit in the way patients are engaged in their care. Yes, there are many things wrong with the system. EHR complexity and interoperability, third party payers, management of chronic illnesses...the list goes on. But the specific problem I was picking up on seemed much more pressing.
It begins when patients leave that sterile-smelling, fluorescent-lit doctor’s office. They have just spent 10-25 minutes being hastily examined, diagnosed, and, if they are lucky, educated about how to address their medical problem. They either leave the office empty-handed, or they walk out holding a generic pamphlet, which will likely end up under an unmanageable pile of papers or in the trash. Unless there was a major change in their treatment plan, many patients go home, forget what the doctor ordered, and continue on their usual journey of whatever harmful behaviors landed them at the doctor’s office in the first place. And without a clear, tangible plan for how to better their health, how are they supposed to behave any differently?
There is a loose, under-utilized semblance of a "plan of care" in most health data sets. You'll find them in the standard CCD, FHIR, and mentioned in CMS's recent chronic care management code, but somehow, no one really knows what you're talking about when you says the words "care" and "plan" together. So I set out to understand everything I could about care plans, and documenting that information in a 3-part feature series. With the help of fellow Invo-ites and field experts, I examined how the concept of a care plan came to be and our understanding of it today (see Part One), the current care planning process and limitations, and existing care plan-related services (see Part Two), and finally, what all of that means for the future of care plans and our shifting healthcare system (Part Three to come!)
I also created a printable white paper on my research and insights that you can download here.
- Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, MA (Econ.), MHSA
The more and more I understood our current healthcare system, the more I realized a glaring deficit in the way patients are engaged in their care. Yes, there are many things wrong with the system. EHR complexity and interoperability, third party payers, management of chronic illnesses...the list goes on. But the specific problem I was picking up on seemed much more pressing.
It begins when patients leave that sterile-smelling, fluorescent-lit doctor’s office. They have just spent 10-25 minutes being hastily examined, diagnosed, and, if they are lucky, educated about how to address their medical problem. They either leave the office empty-handed, or they walk out holding a generic pamphlet, which will likely end up under an unmanageable pile of papers or in the trash. Unless there was a major change in their treatment plan, many patients go home, forget what the doctor ordered, and continue on their usual journey of whatever harmful behaviors landed them at the doctor’s office in the first place. And without a clear, tangible plan for how to better their health, how are they supposed to behave any differently?
There is a loose, under-utilized semblance of a "plan of care" in most health data sets. You'll find them in the standard CCD, FHIR, and mentioned in CMS's recent chronic care management code, but somehow, no one really knows what you're talking about when you says the words "care" and "plan" together. So I set out to understand everything I could about care plans, and documenting that information in a 3-part feature series. With the help of fellow Invo-ites and field experts, I examined how the concept of a care plan came to be and our understanding of it today (see Part One), the current care planning process and limitations, and existing care plan-related services (see Part Two), and finally, what all of that means for the future of care plans and our shifting healthcare system (Part Three to come!)
I also created a printable white paper on my research and insights that you can download here.