Understanding Your Care Team

Enabling caregivers to meaningfully contribute as active members in the circle of care entails building their capacity to feel comfortable in their role as a caregiver.

Learning about the different types of healthcare providers and the roles they may have in the circle of care can support caregivers in understanding what care is being provided, how to navigate the system and importantly, which provider to seek, if certain concerns arise. Often, a circle of care involves many different healthcare providers and it can be challenging for patients and their caregivers to remember the role of each provider on the care team. 

To support patients and family caregivers in being able to identify and understand the different roles on the team, consider offering a roles description list.

Understanding Your Care Team is an example of a role’s description list that St. Joseph’s Health Care London co-designed with caregivers through the Improving Care Together project as a part of their efforts to improve care transitions, better support caregivers and enable supports to build the health literacy of patients and caregivers.

The roles of providers are defined in plain language with columns for the caregiver with staff on the unit/program to write in the names of the actual providers (e.g., Dr. House) and their contact information. The roles list can be customized per unit/program to include the types of providers that would be part of a patient’s care.