How do I create and update a patient treatment/care plan?

Creating and updating a treatment/care plan is essential to achieving positive wound healing outcomes. Learn how to achieve this in Archangel through tailoring steps in the care plan workflow that are most important to your organization.

Creating and updating the treatment/care plan falls near the end of the Archangel process flow(see yellow boxes below) and will take the clinician approximately 2-3 minutes to complete depending on a variety of factors.  These factors will include:

• How experienced the clinician is in using Archangel
• How many steps are included in the care plan(set by your organization's ADMIN)
• If it's the first visit for treatment(will take more time) or its a subsequent visit(will take less time)

In any case, creating and updating the treatment plan in Archangel is fast and easy. 

Creating a treatment plan(aka care plan) is a nine step process. The steps are: 

1. Set wound healing goal
2. Confirm interventions
3. Choose wound dressings and securement*
4. Set dressing change frequency and duration*
5. Address comorbidities and interfering factors
6. Review treatment suggestions
7. Add free-form notes to care plan*
8. Review and confirm care plan*
9. Adherence to care plan

Steps marked with an asterisk(*) are required steps in Archangel for each care plan.  For the remaining steps, the ADMIN account for your organization can choose to include all the remaining steps in your treatment process flow or reduce that number using the Settings > Screens and Frequencies section of the web application(see below).  The ADMIN can easily choose to include or not include the care plan step by turning ON or OFF the steps on this screen.  All changes made by your organizations ADMIN will impact all clinicians in your organization.

In summary, your organizations ADMIN can custom-tailor your Archangel wound care platform including the treatment/care plan.  This results in the following benefits for your organization:

• Optimize wound care visit time
• Minimize how much time the clinician spends in front of the patient
• Collect critical wound care data to deliver better wound care at a lower cost

A final note on custom tailoring . . . in addition to turning ON or OFF the treatment/care plan steps on this screen the ADMIN also has the ability to control how often the step is required using the "Frequency(Days)" setting.   For example, if the "Set Wound Healing Goal" is turned to "ON" and the "Frequency(Days)" is set to 15 days, that step and screen will only show once every 15 days.  So, if you see a patient every 7 days, this step/screen would be skipped 2 out of every three visits.

Below is more detail on all the steps in creating a wound treatment/care plan.

 

Step 1-Set Wound Healing Goal

After you complete an assessment, clicking on the "Continue to Care Plan" button will bring you to the main screen for the treatment/care plan.  Here you see a button for each step in the process starting with "1. Set wound healing goal".  You will notice there is a "Required"(in red) showing for this button and any other buttons in the care plan that are set-up/turned-on by your organizations ADMIN.  Click on this button to proceed with step 1 in the care plan . . . 

 

. . . After clicking on Step 1, you will see the "Set Wound Healing Goal" screen.  Here you enter the number or days you want to set for the wound healing goal.  After entering the number of days, click the green "NEXT" button to continue to step 2 in the care plan. 

 

 

Step 2-Confirm Interventions

In this step, Archangel suggests interventions and allows for the clinician to keep checked or un-check any of the suggested interventions.  These interventions will be displayed on the Wound Assessment and Treatment PDF report.  

 

Step 3-Choose wound dressings and securement(required step)

Continuing onto step 3, you are asked to select the wound care dressings(and, if applicable, securement items) you are using to treat the patient.  You will select these products in three steps:

• Primary Dressings
• Secondary Dressings
• Securement

Archangel suggests advanced wound care dressing categories (collagen, alginate, foam, hydrocolloid, etc.) based on the wound characteristics. Those categories are marked with a purple "Agency Suggested" moniker.  Below is a sample of the sequence of screens you encounter during this step in the care plan process for "Primary Dressings".  The same screens will be repeated if you choose to use "Secondary Dressings" and/or "Securement items" for treatment.

Finally, notice that you can "Search by MFG or product name".  If you prefer to "select" items for treatment instead of the category selection process documented below, you may.  This is convenient if you know exactly the product(s) you want to treat with.  Just type in the MFG ID or the name of the product in the search bar and proceed from there.

 

 

You will notice above, there are products to choose that are "ON FORMULARY" and "OFF FORMULARY".  These products are established and set as ON or OFF FORMULARY by your organizations ADMIN.

Once the Primary Dressings are selected for treatment, you are asked to continue with the following choices:

• Secondary Dressings-Choose this if you treat the wound with a secondary dressing(in addition to the Primary chosen earlier) but not a securement item.
• Securement-Choose this if a secondary dressing is not necessary but a securement item is to secure the primary dressing to the patient.
• Both Secondary and Securement-Choose this if you will treat with not only the primary dressing but also secondary dressing and a securement item.
• Skip and continue-Choose this if you only want to treat with a primary dressing and no secondary or securement is necessary.
  
  

 

Step 4-Set dressing change frequency and duration(required step)

Simply choose the Frequency AND Duration that you want(or that was prescribed by the prescribing physician) from today going forward.  Click "DONE" to proceed to the next step in the care plan process.

 

Step 5-Address comorbidities and interfering factors

Based on the comorbidities and interfering factors you entered earlier during the assessment process, Archangel suggests information for each to review.  All elements are checked and you are given the opportunity to un-check any of those that do not apply.

 

Step 6-Review treatment suggestions

Based on the wound characteristics, Archangel suggests treatment approaches that fall into the following categories:

• General-Suggestions that are not specific to any of the following categories mentioned below.
• Nutrition-Suggestions on what to watch out for and address that are nutritional in nature that could augment wound healing.
• Product Application-Suggestions on how to apply types of dressings and other items.
• Preventions-Suggestions on how to prevent wound worsening.

 

Step 7-Add free-form notes to care plan(required step)

Use the voice dictation feature or type the notes using your phones keyboard.  Tap the microphone and begin speaking for voice dictation.  Click the "X" button to stop voice dictation.  To type notes, simply tap the empty box above the "Clear" button, this will bring up your phones key board.  After typing your notes, click "Done" on the keyboard.  Click SAVE to continue.

 

 

Step 8-Review and confirm care plan(required step)

In this step you are given the opportunity to review(and edit if necessary) the wound healing goal, the dressings used to treat the wound and the care plan notes.  After you review and edits are made(if necessary), click on the NEXT button.  You are now done with the care plan until the next visit.

 

Step 9-Adherence to Treatment/Care Plan

In the final step of the process, you are asked to mark a series of questions as YES or NO relative to the patient adhering/complying with the care plan.  The questions by default are all marked as "NO".  If any of the answers should be marked as "YES",  simply tap the circle in the YES column next to the question.  Clicking CONTINUE will take you to a screen to dictate or type any notes relative to the Treatment Plan adherence.  The notes should build on and detail any questions answered "YES" or any other detail that is important to document about the patient's adherence-which is or may compromise wound healing.