Question

What are "clinical pathways" in modern health care delivery? How can clinical pathways improve the delivery of patient care in American hospitals?

Answer 1

What are clinical pathways?

Clinical pathways/integrated care pathways are tools which implement the evidence based practice.

Here the task/intervention to be followed by the professionals involved in taking care of a specific group of people are well defined, preset, optimized and sequenced by an hour, day or visit. Here the outcomes are also tied to the intervention followed by the professional.

It improves the standard treatment regimen thus improving the outcome thus providing the better quality of life to patients.

How clinical pathway(CP) improve patient care delivery?

CP improves coordination, teamwork, and planning among different clinical disciplines and sectors. This will surely ensure better patient care practices.

CP provide well-defined standards and outcomes. Thus they reduce the variation in providing treatment.

It supports training of professional, which will lead to improvement in the delivery of patient care.

It reduces patient documentation.

CP empowers the patient to get a quality treatment.

CP is expected to reduce risk and cost of health care.