Whether you call it person-centered, person-directed, or just plain quality care, the goal is the same for everyone receiving or regulating long-term care services as it is for all conscientious care providers: Everyone wants care to be tailored to individual preferences and needs. Yet that common-sense goal can be surprisingly hard to achieve in our complex, technology- and medication-oriented, often understaffed health care system.

Many of the barriers that stand in the way are systemic – boulders that no one person can shoulder aside on his or her own. But a self-published, spiral-bound booklet created by an aging services specialist gets long-term care consumers closer to that goal by giving them a way to keep track of their vital information — and share it with direct-care workers and other health care professionals.

The Personal Health Care Passport (PCHP) includes tips on how to communicate with caregivers, but most of its 18 pages are devoted to forms for listing key information. Forms include:

• Family contact information
• Medical histories
• Current medications and other treatments
• Favorite doctors, pharmacists, and hospitals
• Special nutritional needs
• Daily activities

“The whole point of this is, I want to see people empowered,” says Melissa Kahn, who created the PCHP. “Whether it’s the person receiving care or a paraprofessional who’s caring for a new client or a relative who’s caring for someone, maybe long-distance, and doesn’t know anything about their health care needs, the PHCP was designed to foster a dialogue between all parties and encourage a person-centered approach to care.”

Visit Kahn’s website for more information or to order copies.

Elise Nakhnikian, Senior Online Editor
enakhnikian@phinational.org