Integrated care pathways: disease-specific or process-specific?

conventional teaching on integrated care pathways (ICP) suggests that they have to be specific both to a particular setting and to a specific diagnosis. We wished to explore the potential for a generic process-based care pathway.

we evaluated three different, disease-specific ICPs in use on a neurological rehabilitation unit to identify prompts common to and differing between them. Variance types and goal outcomes in all three diagnostic groups were compared.

93% of prompts on the care pathway were common to all three diagnostic groups. The prompts that differed were unique to each diagnostic group and provided important guidelines about management.

in neurorehabilitation, where the process of multidisciplinary care is well defined, it is possible to develop a process-based ICP. Process-based ICPs may not be unique to rehabilitation but may also be relevant to other settings in which patients with differing diagnoses share similar needs.