Why the change of name for Care Aims?

The Care Aims Intended Outcomes Framework  – Collaborative Decision-making for Well-being.

“That’s a bit of a mouthful” I hear you say!  The Care Aims Model was so much snappier.  Why change it?

Reflection and feedback – that’s why!

For a while now, we have been aware that calling it a Model has led to it being perceived as a model of practice rather than an overarching reasoning and decision-making framework.  

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Outcomes provided by the Care Aims Framework

This has been compounded by the fact that only data-set the framework provides – the care aims labels – can be used erroneously to describe inputs and outputs rather than reasoned predicted outcomes.  This means the “model” is sometimes used to reinforce diagnostically or condition-driven thinking by applying the care aim to a care pathway and a set of tasks.  The focus is then on direct interventions/treatments and not the essential  universal and targeted interventions needed to ensure the collaborative approach at the heart of the framework.  This moves the discussion away from the core principle of person-centred care that promotes, self-management and integrated care.

To top it all, we often hear people describing Care Aims as outcome measures and then comparing them, unfavourably, to other outcome measures available.  This means the intention of the framework to focus thinking on the intended outcome (care aim) first and the relevant measure second is missed completely and the framework suffers from misinformation.

So, in summary, after significant deliberation and reflection, we have decided to try and make the name more representative of the philosophy and principles of the framework.