Care mapping is a tool and a process that I created to stay organized and communicate with my son’s care team, including teachers, friends, and family. It’s a snapshot that shows the people, people, programs and resources our family relies on to remain healthy and strong. Care mapping is an easy way to show a lot of important information without having to give a long explanation. It’s been described as a picture that tells more than a thousand words.
Care mapping is being further developed by me and Dr. Richard C. Antonelli of Boston Children’s Hospital, a pediatrician and national expert on care coordination. We have received tremendous feedback from both families and the professionals who support them who want to learn more about how they can use care mapping themselves. Below are some resources.
Using a care map
You can read about how my first care map came into being and how I use it here. The publication Health Affairs also featured care mapping in a video as part of a series about patient engagement.
Making (or helping someone else make) a care map
If you want to make your own care map or help someone else make one, Dr. Antonelli and I have written short guide for parents and professionals that you can find here.
Interested in using my care map in a talk, presentation or article?
If you are interested in using my care map image in a presentation or text, please send an email to: cl (at) cristinlind.com with a description of how it will be used. This image is highly personal to our family and it is important to me that I know where it is being shared.
Please note that permission will only be approved for one time use, with proper credit and only to communicate a message of family empowerment and capacity.
You don’t need to ask permission to link to, share, tweet about, or simply think fondly of the blog or any of the posts about care mapping. That’s just awesome!
Other stories about care mapping
Our family’s care map got a lot of publicity when Lisa Belkin wrote about it in the Huffington Post in 2012.
Since then, many other families have created their own care maps and several have shared their experience.
If you have an experience that you want to share, please drop me a note! I’d love to have some guest bloggers write about their experience with care mapping, or simply to link to yours.
Care mapping in research
Dr. Antonelli and I have also done some preliminary research about care mapping and presented it as a poster at the 2012 Harvard Medical School Primary Care Innovation Conference and as a poster at the IHI European Forum in 2014. By interviewing families and professionals, we have identified many, many more ways that care maps can be developed and new ways to use care mapping as a process to make healthier families and stronger partnerships with professionals. Stay tuned!