Patients aren’t treated in a silo. Care from multiple areas exists throughout the continuum of care between the patient, the patient’s family or care giver, and many different care providers across varying specialties. Connecting these groups is always challenging, and without effectively sharing information, it can lead to medical errors.
Research indicates that when patients actively participate in their overall healthcare management, medical errors are reduced. Patients and families can be essential allies in reducing medical errors. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) reports have supported this concept. This requires effective provider-patient collaboration strategies, which can extend and involve the entire care team, including family members. Collaboration is a complex process that requires intentional knowledge sharing, joint responsibility, and shared objectives for patient care.
NorthPoint Domain’s e-Care Patient Profile allows varying degrees of collaboration:
Patient Profile Includes:

“Patient engagement tools are most effective when delivered by a trusted source, clinically related to a patient's particular situation, made readily accessible, and constructed with interactive applications. This explains the potency of a physician integrating these tools into the care delivery process as an extension of the patient-clinician relationship.”
Medical Informatics Review 3(2), June 2008