Critical Paths or Structured Care Plans: Not Just for Nursing

Abstract

Pharmacists historically have not visibly documented their cognitive interventions. Traditionally, any of these interventions were notated in the margins of a prescription or the back of a prescription. As pharmacists began to expand their practice beyond dispensing, they embraced a pharmaceutical care model for patient care. In the 1990s, this process may remove the pharmacist from dispensing areas. Consequently, they may begin to find themselves removed from their only link historically to pharmacy documentation. Even those pharmacists who have been accustomed to documenting clinical monitoring interventions, often times do this without these interventions becoming an official part of the patient's medical record. If pharmacists are to be considered a part of the patient care team as the health care team moves more to a model of patient-focused care, they will need to begin to document their role in the patient's care coordination. The purpose of a care plan is to establish a predefined approach to a patient's care. If we are to be a part of that patient's care planning, then pharmacists must first get past this stigma that care plans are not just for nursing. Instead, we need to begin to understand their purpose, before we can begin to understand how to develop a structured care plan or critical path. The literature also refers to this interdisciplined concept as critical pathways, patient-focused care, care tracks, criteria mapping, care mapping, or clinical pathways. Unfortunately, each health care discipline is creating their own term.