Care pathways and the information for health strategy

The paper first defines integrated care pathways (ICPs) and demonstrates the important role for ICPs revealed by the NHS 'Information for Health' (IfH) strategy and related documents. Following a review of the main features of ICPs, the paper continues by considering their status in the UK and how their profile is raised by the IfH document. This discussion explores the relationship of ICPs to electronic patient records, seamless care, and the quality initiatives raised by the organizational changes broadcast in the White Paper, 'The New NHS'. The paper then summarizes the main reasons for the limited uptake of ICPs and suggests that the clinical and cultural barriers could be more readily overcome if the production of electronic, computerized ICPs were more facile. It concludes by advancing a simple model for electronic ICP production and offers a hierarchical approach to incremental design and development.