Careplans Book Review
Mary Ann Masesar, RN, BN
The development and evaluation of the patient/resident care plan is often a neglected component of care in the long term care setting. There are plenty of resources on conducting accurate and comprehensive assessments, yet there remains a lack of support for what to do with all the information after it's been collected.
For both the beginner as well as the skilled and experienced,
Comprehensive Care Planning for Long Term Care Facilities: A Guide to Resident Assessment Protocols (RAPs) and Interdisciplinary Care Plans (Volume 2), is a refreshing resource tool. As Clinical Services Manager to Careplans LLC - creators of careplans.com - author Holly F. Sox, RN, RAC-CT clearly demonstrates her wealth of knowledge and awareness of the challenges a long term care practitioner experiences. With her nursing background and expertise as an MDS Coordinator, she stresses that the care plans should only be used as templates. Each care plan should be individualized and utilized by the entire interdisciplinary team in order for it to be useful and effective.
"Remember that the ultimate purpose of the care plan is to guide all who are involved in the care of the person to provide the appropriate treatment in order to ensure the optimal outcomes during his/her stay in our healthcare setting. A caregiver unfamiliar with the patient/resident should be able to find all the information needed to care for this person in the care plan".
Delivered in binder format for easy-to-copy access, it is organized in 4 simple sections. First, an introduction to care planning and RAPS, followed by a discussion on its contribution to quality care are presented. Next, each section is broken down by RAPs (i.e. cognitive loss) and then by problems related to each body system (i.e. care plans for disorders of the cardiovascular system). There's even a section of care plans for problems related to potential complications of medical treatments and medications (i.e. dialysis and anticoagulants).
Recognizing the unique workflow and processes that each long term care facilities utilize, the final section provides examples of supporting documents and forms that could be used in practice either as a template or a discussion point for a more comprehensive and individualized care plan specifically for the facility.
Intended as a starting point for all practitioners, this is an excellent care planning resource book to use in any long term care setting. Over 500 already sold!