Question: Where can a clinician quickly determine a patient's current goals of care designation (GCD), review past decisions, change a designation and record a rationale for change?
Context: A Goals of Care Designation (GCD) is a medical order used to describe and communicate the general aim or focus of care, including the preferred location of that care and any limits placed on care.
It is important to ensure that all patients have an active GCD, to enter new GCD orders with care, and to periodically review GCD orders in compliance with advanced care planning policies. All changes to GCD orders should be paired with documentation of both the authorization and reason for change
Answer: The Connect Care Manual has a short entry highlighting the most important things for prescribers to know about managing GCD orders and documentation, with links to more detailed guides. The following are explained:
- Quickly finding current GCD information via the Patient Storyboard
- Identifying patients/charts with missing GCD information
- Entering and changing GCD orders
- Using the GCD Tracking tool to record more detailed patient instructions or considerations
- Finding and attaching external GCD documents to the patient chart