Self-Management:
Empower Patients by Giving Them the Tools They Need to Succeed

Kathleen Grady, MD, of Kaiser Permanente, recalls asking a patient what medication he was taking. The patient produced his MedActionPlan™. Dr. Grady says, “It was clear and concise. If every patient brought a copy of the My Daily Schedule to their office visits, it would really help prevent medication errors.”

The MedActionPlan family of powerful web-based applications give healthcare providers the tools they need to educate and motivate patients to become full partners in adhering to their treatment plans. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that adherence strategies be tailored to each patient’s needs. The MedActionPlan components are customizable, so patients do not feel they are given generic information that may not apply to them.

How MedActionPlan Can Help

There is little time during a typical office visit to explain what each medicine does and why it is important for patients to take all their medicines as directed. There’s no time to evaluate how well patients understand.

MedActionPlan My Daily Schedule includes a brief explanation of the purpose of each medication. It can be used during the initial patient education process and as a review tool at subsequent visits.

Often patients leave the doctors office with a lot of papers but not really knowing what they are supposed to do.

MedActionPlan packages all essential information about medications, dosing, dosing intervals and special instructions into one patient-friendly package. The Weekly Med Checklist also encourages the patient to keep track of all doses taken, and simplifies assessment of compliance when reviewed at each office visit.

Patient doesn’t speak English.

The MedActionPlan printouts are available in English and Spanish.

Patients seem to have difficulty taking responsibility for their healthcare plan.

The components of a MedActionPlan can be combined in different ways to empower patients. By printing customized medication charts, checklists, patient education sheets, appointment calendars, and other features, healthcare professionals provide patients with the resources they need to self-manage their care. From the moment patients leave the office, they have a clear, concise, and completely individualized system in place for organizing their medication-taking behavior.

There is so much information we need to give to the patient about their medicine, and patients can’t remember it all.

The MedActionPlan programs provide a concise, customized summary of each patient’s medication schedule, as well as special instructions, charts for tracking their doses, and other health data. You can personalize all components of the MedActionPlan and adjust it to the patient’s educational level, health understanding, and cultural norms.

Some of my patients have low health literacy.

My Daily Schedule™ gives a simple explanation of what drugs to take, how much to take, and what time of day to take them, as well as a simple description of what each medicine is for. Some patients don’t understand that “twice a day” means that the dose should be spaced 12 hours a part, so My Daily Schedule specifies exactly what time a day each dose should be taken. Also, all components of the MedActionPlan can be customized to meet the educational level of the patient. Other components provide contact information so that patients can call their healthcare providers if they have questions. All patient education information is written at a 5th grade reading level and includes patient friendly illustrations.

It takes so long to review all the medicines patients are taking.

It is faster and more accurate to review the My Daily Schedule, Weekly Med Checklist, and Weekly Health Record than to ask patients what they remember. These tools provide a more accurate summary of patients’ medications and their medication-taking habits.

It is hard to assess just how adherent patients have been since their last visit.

Between office visits, patients can check off each dose taken, using Weekly Med Checklist and fill out the relevant parts of Weekly Health Record. At each office visit, you can review these documents to help assess adherence and facilitate discussions.

It’s time-consuming to contact patients about their medicines.

The email function of MedActionPlan allows you to email the patient or caregiver a secure link where they have read-access-only to their MedActionPlan. The program generates a unique password for each patient.

References: 1. World Health Organization. Adherence to long-term therapies: Evidence for action. 2003. http://www.who.int/chp/knowledge/publications/adherence_report/en/index.html. Accessed 9-12-05.