Care planning: the neglected key to excellent patient care

Care planning: the neglected key to excellent patient care Care planning is central to good clinical care and is as essential to mental health professionals as sheet music is to the symphony conductor or architectural drawings to the home builder.... More

Care planning: the neglected key to excellent patient care Care planning is central to good clinical care and is as essential to mental health professionals as sheet music is to the symphony conductor or architectural drawings to the home builder. Excellent patient care is about identifying and managing problems effectively and efficiently. Health professionals cannot consistently achieve this without a well thought out care plan that provides a "road map" to guide all those involved with a patient s care. The care plan must be thorough, yet brief enough to be useful. It must be comprehensive and individualized for each patient. It must be dynamic, constantly updated as circumstances change and must also comply with current standards of practice, state and federal regulations. Patient care plans must always be customized for each patient. In a perfect world, staffing ratios would allow health professionals unlimited time to sit at a desk and utilize their expertise. In this per Less