Clinical action plans make a difference at point-of-care

The purpose of this review is to provide an update to and roadmap for the practical implementation of various point-of-care clinical action plans for primary care providers.

Clinical action plans were first developed to address unmet, home preventive needs for the management of asthma. Over the past 10 years, the advancement of mobile health technologies, the recognition of at-risk populations, and the development of evidence-based concepts to guide the creation of patient education tools have expanded the implementation of clinical action plans for many diagnoses (e.g., functional constipation, atopic dermatitis, and headache migraines). Poor patient-related clinical outcomes have been linked with low health literacy for many chronic diseases of childhood. This has served as a call to action to improve patient education. Clinical action plans address this gap by facilitating superior knowledge transfer from the medical team in the clinic to the patient/caregiver. The use of clinical action plans can serve as clinical decision support tools for the medical team and has been demonstrated to improve patient adherence to complex therapy regimens.

Clinical action plans have the potential to improve disease-related self-management confidence, increase pharmacotherapy adherence, and enhance guideline-concordant care. These clinical decision support tools are safe, inexpensive, and represent an advancement in the high-value care model in pediatric medicine.