Patients & Care Partners
Why Patient Priorities Care?
When you manage many health conditions, there is rarely one best treatment. Instead of care focused on each health condition, what if your health care focused on what matters most to you — your own health priorities?
Patient Priorities Care is a collaboration between you, your care partners, and your health care team. First, we help you identify your health priorities. Then, you share those priorities with your health care team so they can align care with your priorities.
What People Are Saying About Patient Priorities Care
Barry
“PPC is an important way to educate the caregiver on priorities-aligned decision making, especially if you’re not a medical person or haven’t specialized in the care of older adults.”
Carole
“Thanks to Patient Priorities Care, I have a care team that listens to me and has made changes in my care to help me do more of what matters most.”
Duryce
Since using Patient Priorities Care, Duryce is back to doing what she enjoys most: bicycling, swimming, and seeing her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.
How to Align Care with Your Health Priorities
The more you and your healthcare team know about what matters most to you, the better you can work together to line up decisions about your health with your health priorities.
These resources are designed to help you identify your specific, actionable, and realistic health priorities and what treatments or symptoms are most bothering you or getting in the way of meeting your goals. All of our resources are free to use.
Identify Your Health Priorities
There are two ways to identify your health priorities:
Self-Directed
Identify your health priorities on our website, MyHealthPriorities.org, or using our printable quick guide. Both resources are self-directed but can be done with the help of a care partner. When you’re finished, you will have a Health Priorities Summary to share with your health care team and family.
A Spanish adaptation (Guía simplificada para la identificación las prioridades de la salud) of the quick guide is also available.
Guided by Your Health Care Team
A member of your health care team will work with you (and your care partner, if desired) to learn what matters most to you and how your health care can support that.
This method is done when your health care team member has been trained in Patient Priorities Care and can guide you through the process.
Tip
This process gets you to a specific and actionable health goal that your health care team can help you achieve, for example, “I would like to go out to lunch with my friends once a week.”
Note
It’s not always possible to reach your health goals without changes that are bothersome or uncomfortable. You may have to make difficult choices about which treatments, medications, or tasks offer benefits that are worth the discomfort. We call these difficult choices tradeoffs.
Share Your Health Priorities
Bring your Health Priorities Summary to your health care appointments. The more you and your health care team know about what matters most to you, the better you can work together to align health decisions with your priorities.
Consider discussing your health priorities with your family and care partner as well. Sharing your priorities with your support system better informs them, so they can provide support that aligns with what matters most to you.
Tip
Unsure of how to navigate this conversation with your health care team? Check out our Guide for Talking with your Health Care Team.
Note
If your clinician is unfamiliar with Patient Priorities Care, ask them to visit our site. We provide training and resources to support clinicians in providing health priorities-aligned care.
