Care Plans have been used in nursing for many years. Now we are providing the tools for you to make your own personal care plans to help you deal with specific medical issues. In addition to helping to make sure that you take all the steps your doctor recommends, the care plan will help you recognize patterns and provide a way to look at past events to see what works best for you.
Care plans have three types of entries but you can use only what you need. The three things we can manage are;
- medications
- activities
- measurements
By making a care plan you can be sure that you follow your doctor's instructions accurately, or follow your own plan accurately. It is easy to forget or skip important parts of our own medical care and making a care plan is the best way to avoid mistakes. Once a care plan is entered, the application shows you on each day what you have to do as part of your care plan. You can access those items on the window we call the 'Daily To Do List". Click the "Today" button on the main menu window to open it. Click here to see an example.
A care plan has a specific time frame which you select. Within that time frame you will schedule the three types of things that you need to do which comprise the care plan. So, for example you might need to take one or more medications, check your temperature and blood pressure, do some specific exercises. Each of these can have its own schedule. The care plan can take care of each of these for you. You can also take notes about your goals, doctor's instructions, or your own observations which might be useful to yourself later or that you want to communicate with your doctor.
To create a new care plan, click on the Records panel in the dashboard and then click the "New Care Plan" button;
For now all we are really entering is a name for the care plan and the start date. You can enter some notes now, but you can also add them later. Your new care plan will appear at the top of your list of records;
Double click to open it and you'll see an empty care plan;
Entering care plan parts continues here;