What is a Comprehensive Care Plan?
A comprehensive care plan is an extremely detailed note that provides information on a patient’s past medical history to doctors, nurses, therapists, and other medical providers. These documents often contain details on a patient’s care and history that cannot be quickly found in most medical record systems or may be impossible to find if a patient gets care in multiple doctors’ offices, hospitals, or health systems.
A comprehensive care plan is updated as a patient’s medical condition changes. This allows all members of the healthcare team to be up-to-date on the latest critical test results, treatments, and preferences of a patient. Comprehensive care plans help to limit excessive testing, avoid incorrect treatments, and improve patients’ comfort with new hospitals and providers.
Three Main parts of a comprehensive care plan
All comprehensive care plans are broken up into sections to make it quick to find relevant information. Exactly which sections are present will vary based on the patient. However, all comprehensive care plans should contain three main sections: the medical summary, emergency care plan, and daily care plan (sometimes called the working care plan):
- Medical Summary: A list of all active medical conditions, medications, surgeries, and other relevant therapies and treatments. Often includes details that explain what treatments have been tried and which have been shown to work for certain conditions. These summaries help to reduce medical errors and avoid unnecessary repetition of ineffective treatments.
- Emergency Care Plan: The emergency section of a care plan includes emergency contact information, recommendations for which emergency rooms to transport a patient to, and information on any special treatments a patient may require based on their medical history. This section helps to prevent delayed care for uncommon medical conditions in emergency rooms and helps to keep a patient’s medical care in one facility or hospital system.
- Daily Care Plan: Focuses on daily treatments such as physical therapy, occupational therapy, diet, spiritual, and patient preferences. Daily care plan information is focused on the patient experience outside of the medical system. This part of the plan is focused on patient comfort and personal preferences. Information on a patient’s course of recovery from long-term disabling conditions or injuries may also be included here.
Who Are Comprehensive Care Plans For?
Patients living with multiple medical issues, those who are hospitalized frequently, and those recovering from a new illness and injury are most likely to benefit from comprehensive care plans. Below are some of the most common categories of conditions that see significant benefits from comprehensive care plans.
Chronic Medical Conditions
Some of the most common chronic medical conditions can have surprisingly complex treatment plans. Since a large amount of the U.S. Population is living with one or more of these conditions, they show up in the majority of comprehensive care plans.
- Type 1 and type 2 diabetes
- Severe hypertension
- Heart disease (Coronary artery disease)Chronic ob
- structive pulmonary disease (COPD)
- Asthma
- Chronic kidney disaese (CKD)
- Liver disease (Chirrhosis)
Neurologic Conditions
Neurological conditions affect patients of all ages but are most common in the very young and the elderly. These patients may not be able to memorize, recall, and discuss their medical conditions in depth due to their age or due to the condition itself, making care plans critical for these patients.
- Stroke
- Parkinsons
- Alzheiemers
- Epilpesy
Mental Health Conditions
Mental health conditions are similar to neurologic conditions in that they can make discussing medical diagnoses, previous treatments, and current treatment plans difficult for patients. Mental health records can also be difficult to obtain in some parts of the country, making comprehensive care plans critical to effective treatment.
- Depression and anxiety
- Schizophrenia
- Bipolar disorder
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
Autoimmune Conditions
Autoimmune conditions are highly complex and often require multiple medical specialists to manage. Treatment regimens are often complex and can change quickly. Many medications used to treat autoimmune conditions can have dangerous side effects that doctors treating patients in the emergency room need to be aware of. For all these reasons and more, comprehensive care plans are excellent for patients with autoimmune conditions.
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Lupus
- Chron’s disease and ulcerative colitis
Genetic Conditions
Patients with genetic conditions will often try a large number of treatments over their lifetimes. The treatments that are offered also change quickly as science advances. Knowledge about the effects of previous treatments, side effects, and patient preferences are critical to starting new treatments. Again, this makes comprehensive care plans excellent for these patients.
- Cystic fibrosis
- Sickle cell disease
- Hemophilia, Thalassemia, and other bloodborne conditions
Benefits of Comprehensive Care Plans
Rapid recovery
Patients with a comprehensive care plan recover from severe injuries and illness better than those who do not have one. Comprehensive care plans are associated with the following.
- Quicker return to independent living
- Lower risk of needing to be readmitted to a hospital
- Increased comfort during the recovery process
- Lower risk of medication side effects
Patients with lifelong medical conditions still see significant benefits from comprehensive care plans. These plans make it easier to plan medical treatments, discover medication side effects, and detect when new medical conditions arise or existing conditions worsen. This improves patients’ quality of life and helps them spend less time managing the side effects of their medical conditions.
Patient comfort
Patients who have detailed comprehensive care plans feel that their personal non-medical needs and preferences are better understood and met. Religious, dietary, sleep, and daily activities can all be built into a comprehensive care plan. The plan can then be used to ensure that new staff members at a facility, or the staff at any new facility, understand a patient’s preferences and can implement them without being asked.
Healthcare cost savings
Comprehensive care plans contain information on what tests have been performed, the results of those tests, and information from doctors on what conditions they have ruled out and what treatments have been effective. Having this information easily accessible reduces the unnecessary repetition of unnecessary tests and ineffective treatments, reducing unnecessary medical bills.
Two of the biggest medical expenses for someone living with a chronic medical condition are visits to the emergency department and admission to the hospital. Comprehensive care plans have been proven to reduce emergency room visits and hospital admissions. This is another one of the many ways that comprehensive care plans help to cut medical costs for patients.
Comprehensive care plans, patient safety, and the joint commission
The Joint Commission is an organization that reviews hospitals’ policies, facilities, and outcomes. Comprehensive care plans for patients with complex medical conditions have been studied by the Joint Comission and strongly recommended due to their significant impact on patient safety at healthcare facilities accredited by the Joint Comission.
Sierra Care is a Joint Comission-accredited facility. The process of accreditation requires a review of our care facilities, staff credentials, available services, and patient outcomes. Accreditation is a constant process; all of these factors are continually reassessed to ensure that we continue to meet the highest standards in healthcare.
Our comprehensive care plans are created with input from our nurses, therapists, doctors, and medical specialists. They are just one part of our plan to maximize patient safety, recovery, and comfort at Sierra Care.
Sierra Care and Comprehensive Care Plans
Sierra Care is a subacute care provider in Central California. We provide services focused on speeding patients’ recovery after hospitalization for an injury or medical condition. Sierra Care builds comprehensive care plans for all of our patients, they allow our skilled doctors, therapists, nurses, and case managers to provide the best possible care for our patients.
At Sierra Care, we have in-house therapists, medical specialists, and case managers that dramatically reduce the cost to you when compared to other facilities that offer rehabilitation, therapy, in-home care, skilled nursing facilities, and long-term acute care. We are focused on the patient experience, with beautiful modern facilities, kind providers, and plentiful staff.
If you or a loved one has been hospitalized for an injury or any of the medical conditions listed in the article above, contact us today to speak with one of our case managers to learn more about how Sierra Care can help you at any stage of your recovery!
References
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23245454/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10017140/
https://www.jointcommissionjournal.com/article/S1553-7250(20)30005-2/abstract
