Caregiver creation of participation-focused care plans using Participation and Environment Measure Plus (PEM+), an electronic health tool for family-centred care

Background: Family-centred care (FCC) is a model for rehabilitation practice that focuses on collaborative partnerships between providers and clients (i.e. children and their caregivers). FCC is a best-practice standard and is expected to yield better outcomes for children and greater caregiver satisfaction with rehabilitation services. A commonly cited barrier to implementing FCC is perceptions about caregiver capability to contribute to designing an initial plan of care, due to lack of skill and/or interest. Objectives: The aim of this study is to address FCC barriers through three objectives: (a) report the proportion of caregivers that created multiple care plans using PEM+, an electronic health tool, (b) assess the proportion of caregivers that created complete and participation-focused care plan(s) and that exceeded criteria of a complete plan, and (c) describe characteristics of caregivers that did not create a complete care plan. Methods: Study objectives were addressed via secondary analyses of a subset of data from the PEM + pilot trial. Participants were caregivers (N= 18) of children with developmental disabilities (aged 0-5 years) receiving rehabilitation services in an early childhood programme. A deductive analytic approach was used to code care plan content to criteria and to determine proportion of caregivers with a complete and participation-focused care plan and those that exceeded the criteria. Results: Multiple care plans were created by 72% of the caregivers, 83% caregivers created at least one care plan that was complete and participation-focused per criteria, and 83% exceeded the criteria. Conclusion: The high occurrence of caregivers who developed multiple care plans and who developed high-quality care plans, in their completeness and participation-focused features, suggests that caregivers are interested and capable of participating in a collaborative goal setting process when using PEM+. This indicates that FCC is feasible to implement in clinical workflow with the use of an electronic health tool, which may better facilitate such care. PEM+ warrants further efficacy testing prior to implementation.