Therapy Plans
Therapy plans help organize the delivery of tests and therapies across multiple encounters for a specific health condition. Plans and protocols, like templates, express best practice and cannot be edited.
Therapy plans are patient-specific instances of therapy protocols, with elements selected to suit unique patient needs and constraints. A plan can incorporate one or more treatment protocols under a common plan provider and a common review scheme. Simply put, a therapy plan is a recurring SmartSet. The purpose, structure and use of therapy plans is covered in a guide for clinicians.
Note: This guide does not cover Complex Therapy Plans - see the section at the bottom of this page for more information.
Special Situations
Treatments in Emergency Departments
Sometimes a therapy plan is initiated or continued in an Emergency Department (ED) setting. EDs on Connect Care are able to book therapy plans in-system.
Overlapping or Changing Plan Elements
The existence of a therapy plan can present challenges when prescribers wish to order tests or treatments in parallel to or instead of plan elements.
Ordering Therapy Plans for Non-Local Patients
A tip sheet details the workflow for specialists in larger urban centres who manage care for patients referred in from rural or smaller centres. This workflow applies when both sites are on Connect Care (if both are not, the current processes apply, i.e., consult note with recommendation).
Re-signing Restricted Medication Therapy Plans
If a date has been changed in a Restricted Medication Therapy Plan, the prescriber who ordered it will receive a notice in their In Basket indicating that review and re-sign is required. Plans with Restricted Medications cannot be signed by nurses, and therefore, if there is a date change to a Restricted Medication Therapy Plan, the plan will then have to be re-signed by the prescriber. (Note that Connect Care is continuing to look at options to reduce this workload on prescribers.)
Addiction and Mental Health: Neuromodulation
Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT), ketamine infusions, and Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) are ordered through a Therapy Plan.
Expired Therapy Plans
By default, all order signatures in therapy plans expire after 12 months, regardless of when or if the treatment ordered within the plan has ended (unless the plan has been discontinued). When the treatments and orders from a therapy plan are close to the one-year expiry, the Plan Prescriber assigned to the plan will receive an In Basket notice, with a prompt to either renew or discontinue the Plan. It is necessary for the provider to re-sign the Plan for new orders to be released and actioned.
Complex Therapy Plans
A Complex Therapy Plan involves a structured grouping of orders with a specific month/day sequence. These Plans, such as bladder instillation protocols, provide the flexibility to administer treatments with non-standard intervals and adjust days as needed without the need for re-signing.
As of September 23, 2024, all prescribers will see a "Complex Therapy Plan" tab in the "Therapy Plan" activity; however, only bladder instillation protocols will be available for Urologists at this time. A broader selection of Complex Therapy Plans will be added for use by other prescribers in 2025.
For more information on Complex Therapy Plans, see the guide. A self-guided course is also available to help prescribers become familiar with this functionality.