Why Use Pathways?

Pathways of Care

Pathways are used to help provide efficient care for a specific disease or condition.  

Clinical pathways focus on providing patients with consistent up-to-date education throughout their treatment. They help with patient and provider communication and with setting expectations.  The pathways also help coordinate appropriate care and ensure that outcomes are being followed.

Many medical conditions have defined treatments that follow a stepwise progression.  In most cases, the evaluation and treatment are standardized. Expert panels often create best practice standards and guidelines for treatment.  Clinical pathways follow these guidelines. For providers, during a single office visit, it can be difficult to educate patients about their condition, all of the possible treatments, and the various outcomes.   It is challenging for a patient to retain all of this information over a period of months from one appointment to the next.

Patient Navigators

Many disease states currently are utilizing human navigators which can involve significant staff time and cost. Utilizing pathways and clinical staff is very valuable and helps with patient compliance, communication and facilitates appropriate progression in therapy.

Benefits of Practices Using Clinical Pathways and Navigation

Improvement in patient education. First and foremost patient education improves patient compliance, treatment satisfaction and finding the most appropriate treatment.
Improvement in provider efficiency. Due to time constraints in practice, physicians rarely have adequate time to fully educate and instruct patients on all of the available options for therapy. The behavioral and conservative options for treatment can be presented to patients on their own time, at a depth appropriate for each patient.  Patients can then advance to the next appropriate treatment as necessary.
Improved utility of appointments. Routine follow-up visits to assess efficacy may be omitted in patients who are improved on treatment.  Delays in moving on to the next available therapy may be avoided by utilizing the electronic communication.
Standardization of practice based on clinical guidelines. Utilization of our platform allows for a standardized approach to the treatment of disease processes. Quality of life questionnaires are used throughout.  This generates data illustrating that you are providing quality care.
Improved compliance. As patients navigate through a medical condition many are “lost to follow up”.  They are not seeing an improvement and feel as if they are failing. Continued interaction and the ability to communicate through the application are keys to keeping patients engaged in their care.
Educating patients about future therapies that they will likely need. For advanced cancer, the navigation will provide pathways, clinical guidelines, and education about appropriate next therapies. This helps patients prepare for what options are available and streamlines care so that they receive treatment as soon as possible.