Dulcian Health is often asked how the DH-CCM software determines if a patient's problem is chronic or acute.

Here are the steps we follow when building a patient's Care Plan:

1. We request the patient's problem list from athenaNet

2. athenaNet returns the patient's problem list with each problem marked as either chronic or acute based on what the practice set it to in athenaNet. If the practice never selected chronic or acute for that problem, the problem is marked with a blank.

3. If the problem is marked chronic - it's chronic on the Care Plan

4. If the problem is marked acute - it's acute on the Care Plan

5. If the problem is marked with a blank, we lookup the problem on our internal list of chronic conditions. If it's on our chronic list, it's chronic on the Care Plan - otherwise it's acute.

What's Next? 

In an upcoming DH-CCM release, each practice will be able to maintain their own custom list of chronic conditions to be used in Step 5 above.