Chronic Disease Education
Acute Condition Education
Working with your Family Physician
Working with Allied Care Providers
Personalized Care Planning
Knowledge is Power.
True/False - Quiz: Do You Understand Personalized Care Planning?
Information - Personalized Care Planning
Chronic diseases are diseases that are long-lasting and can be treated but not cured. Chronic diseases are generally defined as conditions that last one or more years, require ongoing medical attention and/or limit activities. A chronic disease usually develops over time, often progressing in severity.
What is Personalized Care Planning?
Healthcare providers are trying to change chronic disease management from reactive to proactive. Personalized care planning is a collaborative approach that involves you and your healthcare provider working together to manage your condition with an appropriate action plan—from goal setting to monitoring progress.
Studies have shown that personalized care planning can not only result in better chronic disease management, but may also result in:
- Decreased blood sugar levels in people with diabetes
- Reduced depression and anxiety
- Improved lung function in patients with asthma
Optimizing Personalized Care Planning
You’ll get more out of personalized care planning if you:
Stay actively involved in the process. Don’t just expect your healthcare team to find all the solutions. Work closely with your healthcare providers to create goals around exercise, diet, sleep and personal development.
Coordinate and collaborate. Using an electronic health record system to share notes is an ideal way to ensure everyone is informed and aligned. If you don’t have that, work with your healthcare providers to create a process that keeps everyone in the loop.
Be open to the planning process. Too often, patients stall their personalized care plan because they don’t want to consider in-home nursing care or move to an extended care facility. These moves often take months or years to coordinate, so being open and amenable can go a long way.
Understand that your needs/goals may change over time. Personalized care planning is not a static process. You may need more or less support or different medications and care options as time goes by.
Don’t neglect your mental health. While a good personalized care plan will involve mental health support, some patients tend to focus more on the physical parts of the process. Remember that a good social support system and help from mental health providers is as important as the physical aspects of your plan.
Talk to your family physician if you'd like more information on personalized care planning.
Visit HealthChoicesFirst.com for more videos and resources on family health.
Print this Action Plan and check off items that you want to discuss with your healthcare provider
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Healthcare providers are trying to change chronic disease management from reactive to proactive. Personalized care planning is a collaborative approach that involves you and your healthcare provider working together to manage your condition with an appropriate action plan—from goal setting to monitoring progress.
-
You’ll get more out of personalized care planning if you stay actively involved in the process. Don’t just expect your healthcare team to find all the solutions. Work closely with your healthcare providers to create goals around exercise, diet, sleep and personal development.
-
Using an electronic health record system to share notes is an ideal way to ensure everyone is informed and aligned. If you don’t have that, work with your healthcare providers to create a process that keeps everyone in the loop.
-
Too often, patients stall their personalized care plan because they don’t want to consider in-home nursing care or move to an extended care facility. These moves often take months or years to coordinate, so being open and amenable can go a long way.
-
While a good personalized care plan will involve mental health support, some patients tend to focus more on the physical parts of the process. Remember that a good social support system and help from mental health providers is as important as the physical aspects of your plan.
