health thread

defined association between care circumstances as determined by one or more care actors

EXAMPLE 1 A low back pain, known for many years by the subject of care's GP, treated several times by the physiotherapist who labelled it a scoliosis and currently a candidate for a specific orthopaedic intervention.

EXAMPLE 2 Type 2 diabetes treated by a GP, a nurse, an endocrinologist and a vascular surgeon.

EXAMPLE 3 The health conditions included in a care process.

Note 1 to entry: A health thread reconciles a range of health circumstances reflecting the variety of scopes of care actors, particularly of care providers.

Note 3 to entry: A health thread may be established by a team (e.g. a coordination committee).

Note 4 to entry: A health thread can be built step-by-step, by allowing each care professional to add their perspective into a common health thread

Note 5 to entry: Under the responsibility of a designated care actor a health thread linking several health circumstances can describe an episodes of care bundle for instance, a partial or comprehensive synthesis of care actor related episodes of care

Note 6 to entry: A collective decision (before, during or after the care interventions) may define a health thread and so the idea of the 'episode' accepted by all the care professionals involved.

Note 7 to entry: Two health conditions may sometimes only be recognized as belonging to the same health thread late in the process of care Conversely, two health conditions thought initially to belong to the same health thread may need to be separated later.

Note 8 to entry: A health thread may be considered an aggregation of health circumstances and/or health threads.