The Clinical and Utilization Perspective

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The Care Plan project team acknowledges that different stakeholder groups uses the concepts (treatment plan, plan of care and care plan) differently.

Some stakeholder group treats the three concepts as distinctly different. Some stakeholder group use the concepts - plan of care and care plan - interchangeably.

If distinctions are to be made on the different types of plan, some differentiating characteristics can be discerned:

* Treatment Plan

- Encounter specific (i.e. a different treatment plan can be initiated/instantiated at each encounter)

- Problem specific (i.e. each treatment plan is initiated to manage a specific problem or complaint)

- Provider specific/centric (i.e. each treatment plan is initiated by a specific provider, e.g. PCP, cardiologist, physiotherapist)

- May be part of SOAP process

* Plan of Care

- Episodic in nature (e.g. from pre-admission, inpatient care, post discharge follow up care until patient is discharged back to the care of PCP)

- Problem specific (but also includes comorbidities as they impact on the management of the principal problem)

- Provider specific/centric (includes health team members such as physiotherapist, occupational therapist, dietitian, etc)

* Care Plan (aka Comprehensive Care Plan)

- Longitudinal (i.e. span across multiple encounters, episodes)

- One or more health concerns/problems (e.g. principal problem, comorbidities)

- Patient centric (i.e. includes patient concerns, life goals and preferences)

- Care coordination tool (coordination of one or more care teams which include the patient and patient proxy)