# Care plans (/docs/en/guides/care-plans)



A care plan holds the goals, interventions and review points you agreed with a patient. A draft only keeps your preparation. Activating it starts the scheduled work. Changing a plan needs **Write all clinical records**, or **Write assigned clinical records** together with a link to the patient (assigned doctor, plan creator or responsible team member).

## Prepare a draft [#draft]

1. Open the patient and choose **New → Care plan**, or **New care plan** on the **Care plans** page. A draft opens.
2. Give it a title and write the **Background**: why this plan, and why now.
3. Add **Goals**. Choose whether each is measured, with a vital or a custom number, or judged at review. For measured goals, **On a schedule** adds recurring check-ins and **At review only** does not.
4. Add **Interventions**, such as a medication, exercise, form or team task, with their schedules.
5. Add at least one review point. Set the start date, duration and timezone, and the **For the patient** section with when to call.

The draft saves as you type. The Agent can draft a plan from your instructions. Review its text and rows separately, because you are responsible for the plan's content. **Discard draft** deletes a draft permanently.

## Activate the plan [#activate]

**Activate…** stays disabled until the plan has background text, a goal, an intervention, a review point, a workable schedule, a start date, a timezone and a duration. It also needs a patient email address when the plan emails the patient, and a patient with no active duplicate of a medication the plan starts.

1. Choose **Activate…**. The screen shows what activation will start, week by week.
2. Check dates, recipients and review points.
3. Choose **Activate plan**.

<Callout type="warn">
  Activating starts scheduled work. Patient check-ins go out by email from the first scheduled day, and team tasks and reviews appear on their dates. You can pause a running plan or cancel it, but you cannot take back what has already been sent.
</Callout>

An active plan and a delivered email are different results. Check the actual request status in the plan.

## Give the patient their copy [#patient-copy]

Medicines and activities reach the patient on paper only. Check-in emails ask for readings or answers. They do not carry the plan.

1. After activating, choose **Print patient copy**. Choose it again whenever the plan changes.
2. Give the printed plan to the patient.
3. Choose **Handed over** to record that they have it.

Until you do this, the patient has not received the plan's medicines and activities. When you change the plan after printing, the plan shows the copy as out of date and offers **Print new copy**. **Handed over** records that you gave the paper to the patient. It sends nothing.

## Follow the plan and run reviews [#reviews]

**Week board** and the timeline show what is due. The **Needs you** band lists overdue tasks, unanswered check-ins, a printed copy that needs attention, and email problems. For an email problem choose **Fix email** or **Switch to paper**. A goal shows its last value and target. Choose **Request check-in** on a goal to email the patient a one-time link. Sending reaches the patient.

When a review is due, choose **Start review**, write the note, then **Complete review**. An interim review ends as **on track**, **adjust** or **off track**. Saving the note alone does not complete the review. Read the measurements before you choose, because a missing answer is not a clinical verdict.

## Pause, complete or cancel [#lifecycle]

Use **More actions** in the plan.

* **Pause…** needs a reason and can hold a planned resume date. Scheduled tasks and patient emails are suspended. &#x2A;*Resume…** shows which items shift and the new end date before you confirm.
* **Complete…** asks for a verdict on every goal (**Achieved**, **Partially** or **Not achieved**) and which standing orders continue. Confirm with **Complete & sign**. Future scheduled items are cancelled.
* **Cancel…** needs a reason and lets you keep chosen orders as standalone orders. It stops all scheduled work.

<Callout type="warn">
  Cancelling cannot be undone. Use &#x2A;*Pause…** if the plan might continue.
</Callout>

On a completed plan, &#x2A;*Renew…** creates a new draft to review before you activate it.

## Related [#related]

* [Clinical records](/docs/en/guides/clinical-records)
* [Patient forms](/docs/en/guides/patient-forms)
* [Patient messages](/docs/en/guides/patient-messages)