Toolkit for Providers Serving Children with Epilepsy
Complete a Care Plan for Each Child with Epilepsy in Your Practice
What We Learned
• Management of a child with epilepsy is complex, generally involving at minimum a primary care provider and a specialist neurologist, and frequently involving other specialists e.g. developmental pediatrician, interventionist, ophthalmologist etc.
• Communication between primary care providers, and specialists, and between all providers and families is sometimes incomplete.
• Many families have found that having a completed written care plan, that all providers contribute to, improves communication, and provides a clear management plan that the family can follow.
What We Did
• Trialed completion of written care plans for children with epilepsy. These links show some examples of care plans:
• Families organized their care plans and other care-related information into a care notebook. These links show examples of care notebooks:
Questions for My Practice
• Do we provide written care plans for families?
• Do we have a system for completion of care plans at family visits?
• Does the care plan make it clear to the family who they should call in common situations e.g. rash, fever, vomiting?
• Can we involve non-physician staff in completion of some parts of the care plan?
Changes to Try in My Practice
• Provide written care plans for families of children with epilepsy
• Complete the care plan jointly with the family.
• Ask families if they find the care plan useful, and if they carry it with them to appointments.
• Find out if families are keeping their care plans in care notebooks.
• Consider reviewing the care notebook jointly with the family at visits.
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