Health Care
Manage health and social care practice outcomes for individuals
1. Understand the theory and principles that underpin based practice
Explain outcome based practice
In 1990 health care providers had just began to discover what appeared to be a very powerful tool for reducing variation in patient care practices - clinical paths. A clinical path includes descriptions of key events that, if performed by caregivers as described, are expected to produce the most desirable outcomes for patients with specific conditions or procedures. By the late 1990s, caregivers started to question the benefits of clinical paths. Organizations reported problems integrating the pathway document into patient records, thus dampening caregiver enthusiasm for using the pathway. Physicians, nurse, and other clinicians found the pathways difficult to apply to all patient populations. A variety of factors may be causing clinical paths to look like yesterday’s failed solution, when in fact the lessons learned during years of pathway development are being put to good use in many organizations.
Today caregivers are adopting outcomes-based practice methods to achieve desired patient care goals. Outcomes-based practice (sometimes called outcomes management) involves a combination of teamwork, continuous quality improvement, and process and outcome measurement. These collaborative multidisciplinary efforts build on the pathway development work of the 1990s. It’s quite likely that outcomes-based practice would not have been possible if caregivers hadn’t learned how to work together while designing clinical paths. All of those multidisciplinary meetings to develop paths were not a waste of time!
Paths and Outcomes-Based Practice
Caregivers have discovered that an “as needed” pathway philosophy seems to work best. Clinical paths were never intended to solve every documentation challenge, eliminate every unnecessary cost, or be used for every patient. Instead of trying to develop an
1. Understand the theory and principles that underpin based practice
Explain outcome based practice
In 1990 health care providers had just began to discover what appeared to be a very powerful tool for reducing variation in patient care practices - clinical paths. A clinical path includes descriptions of key events that, if performed by caregivers as described, are expected to produce the most desirable outcomes for patients with specific conditions or procedures. By the late 1990s, caregivers started to question the benefits of clinical paths. Organizations reported problems integrating the pathway document into patient records, thus dampening caregiver enthusiasm for using the pathway. Physicians, nurse, and other clinicians found the pathways difficult to apply to all patient populations. A variety of factors may be causing clinical paths to look like yesterday’s failed solution, when in fact the lessons learned during years of pathway development are being put to good use in many organizations.
Today caregivers are adopting outcomes-based practice methods to achieve desired patient care goals. Outcomes-based practice (sometimes called outcomes management) involves a combination of teamwork, continuous quality improvement, and process and outcome measurement. These collaborative multidisciplinary efforts build on the pathway development work of the 1990s. It’s quite likely that outcomes-based practice would not have been possible if caregivers hadn’t learned how to work together while designing clinical paths. All of those multidisciplinary meetings to develop paths were not a waste of time!
Paths and Outcomes-Based Practice
Caregivers have discovered that an “as needed” pathway philosophy seems to work best. Clinical paths were never intended to solve every documentation challenge, eliminate every unnecessary cost, or be used for every patient. Instead of trying to develop an
References: (2007) Users and Carers Define Effective Partnerships in Health and Social Care. www.jitscotland.org.uk/action-areas/themes/involvement. Qureshi, H. (2001) Outcomes in Social Care Practice