HEALTHCARE SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CREATING A PERSONALIZED CARE PLAN FOR A USER

Abstract

A healthcare system for creating a personalized care plan for a user comprises a processor and a computer-readable storage medium, wherein the computer-readable storage medium contains instructions for execution by the processor. The instructions cause the processor to perform the steps of receiving life goal information defined by a user, said life goal information indicating the user's life goals, mapping the received life goal information into care plan goals categories including two or more categories, and defining a care plan including a care plan schedule for the care plan goals categories onto which the received life goal information has been mapped, said schedule includes, per care plan goals category, one or more care plan content elements representing elements of the care plan.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to healthcare system for creating a personalized care plan for a user, in particular a patient. The present invention further relates to a corresponding healthcare method and to a computer-readable non-transitory storage medium.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Chronic conditions such as heart failure (HF) place a tremendous strain on patients, their families, the community, and the health care system because there are no real “cures”. Approximately 5.8 million Americans are living with HF, with an estimated incidence of 660,000 new cases each year. Further, worsening of HF is a leading cause of readmission within 30 days post-discharge across all diseases, e.g., every 1 out of 4 patients is going back to the hospital in the 30 days post-discharge period.

Patient's non-compliance to chronic conditions therapy specified by a care plan (CP; generally being a specification of a coaching intervention) decreases the care plan efficacy and exposes the patient to clinical destabilization, which can lead to exacerbating disease symptoms. Evidence from clinical trials and validated patient's and clinician's insights show that the most commonly identified cause of disease worsening, e.g. Heart Failure decompensation, is non-compliance with medication, low sodium diet, fluid restriction and physical activity. Non-compliance is the precipitating factor of exacerbation. Hence, patient's compliance to a care plan is a prerequisite for better clinical outcomes, e.g., reduced readmissions and mortality.

The first step in patient's compliance to a care plan is a “goals” identification that usually is done during the discharge process. These goals are documented in the care plan by the discharge planner nurse in the hospital and then reviewed and discussed during the follow-up visits at the HF clinic and/or home visits of the home care nurse. These are usually health goals.

The care plan in home settings is usually presented to the patients via a telehealth system. The telehealth system can be a stand-alone service or an embedded service in a patient portal which supports patients with personalized information and tools to improve their understanding of their chronic condition(s) and the benefits of compliance with their care plan.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is an object of the present invention to provide a healthcare system and method for creating a personalized care plan for a user, by which a better motivation and compliance of the user to the care plan can be achieved and which enables dynamic changes of the care plan even at run time once it is at the execution phase.

In a first aspect of the present invention a healthcare system for creating a personalized care plan for a user is presented, said healthcare system comprising a processor and a computer-readable storage medium, wherein the computer-readable storage medium contains instructions for execution by the processor, wherein the instructions cause the processor to perform the steps of:

receiving life goal information defined by a user, said life goal information indicating the user's life goals,

mapping the received life goal information into care plan goals categories including two or more categories, and

defining a care plan including a care plan schedule for the care plan goals categories onto which the received life goal information has been mapped, said schedule includes, per care plan goals category, one or more care plan content elements representing elements of the care plan.

In a further aspect of the present invention a corresponding healthcare method is presented.

In a still further aspect of the present invention a healthcare system for creating a personalized care plan for a user is presented, said system comprising:

a life goals authorizer that is configured to receive life goal information defined by a user, said life goal information indicating the user's life goals,

a life goals mapper that is configured to map the received life goal information into care plan goals categories including two or more categories, and

a care plan compiler that is configured to define a care plan including a care plan schedule for the care plan goals categories onto which the received life goal information has been mapped, said schedule includes, per care plan goals category, one or more care plan content elements representing elements of the care plan.

In yet a further aspect of the present invention, there is provided a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium that stores therein a computer program product, which, when executed by a processor, causes the method disclosed herein to be performed.

Preferred embodiments of the invention are defined in the dependent claims. It shall be understood that the claimed method and medium have similar and/or identical preferred embodiments as the claimed system and as defined in the dependent claims.

The present invention is based on the idea to take explicitly the user's life goals into account during the creation of a personalized care plan by influencing the care plan design on a user base. In other words, the user's defined life goals, i.e. what users really care about, are translated into care plan health goals. Achieving motivation and compliance to the care plan and underlying health goals is thus improved compared to known healthcare systems and known care plans.

Further, according to the present invention the care plan can be dynamically changed, e.g. by a care plan engine which creates and executes the care plan, at run time once it is at the execution phase since the proposed healthcare system and method do generally not refer to a static care plan library that consists of a set of pre-defined care plans with embedded health goals that have been reviewed and approved to comply with all applicable guidelines and clinical standards.

Thus, in summary, the proposed healthcare system and method are able to generate care plans with different specifications per user covering the users' variety of life goals.

In this context, life goals generally touch on the things that are most important to users in their live, the things that they care about the most. For example, a HF user might express his life goals as “being able to play with grandchildren without being fatigue after 5 min”, “being able to work in the garden without getting breathlessness” or “being able to vacuum clean my house without needing to rest twice”.

Health goals, in contrast, are the choices and lifestyle behavior that people can pursue in order to address their most important health issues. For example, typical HF user's health goals are medication adherence, symptoms worsening monitoring, low sodium diet, fluid restriction and regular physical activity.

Focusing on user's life goal creates motivation and energy that can prompt real behavioral change needed to drive the compliance to the care plan expressed by achieving the health goals. The present invention focuses on the translation of user's defined life goals into a personalized (user-driven) care plan and its underlying health goals. In preferred embodiments a reverse translation is provided as well to provide user feedback and tracking of the user's compliance.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and other aspects of the invention will be apparent from and elucidated with reference to the embodiment(s) described hereinafter. In the following drawings

FIG. 1 shows a schematic diagram of a first embodiment of a healthcare system according to the present invention,

FIG. 2 shows a schematic diagram of a first embodiment of a healthcare method according to the present invention,

FIG. 3 shows a schematic diagram of a second, more detailed embodiment of a healthcare system according to the present invention,

FIG. 4 shows a schematic diagram of a second embodiment of a healthcare method according to the present invention,

FIG. 5 shows a diagram of an exemplary care plan structure,

FIG. 6 shows a diagram of types of care plan content elements,

FIG. 7 shows a diagram of an exemplary care plan specification, and

FIG. 8 shows a diagram of an exemplary care plan visualization as dashboard.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

FIG. 1 shows a schematic diagram of a first embodiment of a healthcare system 10 according to the present invention for creating a personalized care plan for a user (e.g. a patient; in the following reference will be made to patient, but this may generally be understood as a user). It comprises a processor 11 and a computer-readable storage medium 12. The computer-readable storage medium 12 contains instructions for execution by the processor 11. These instructions cause the processor 11 to perform the steps of a healthcare method 100 as illustrated in the flow chart shown in FIG. 2.

In a first step S10 life goal information 1 defined by a user is received, said life goal information indicating the user's life goals. In a second step S11 the received life goal information 1 is mapped into care plan goals categories 2 including two or more categories. In a third step S12 a care plan is defined, said care plan including a care plan schedule for the care plan goals categories 2 into which the received life goal information 1 has been mapped. Said schedule includes, per care plan goals category, one or more care plan content elements representing elements of the care plan and, preferably, time information representing the duration and/or time of executing said care plan content elements.

In the context of the present invention life goals are generally defined by the patients (users) and not by the medical professionals for the purpose of describing the internal patient's motivators (i.e. what matters to the patients) in order to adhere to a medical treatment. Life goals are input for tailored design of a medical treatment specified by a care plan rather than measurements (like quality-of-life parameters) for the effectiveness of a medical treatment. Such quality-of-life measurements/parameters are usually defined by medical professionals/scientists for the purpose of measuring the effectiveness of a medical treatment. For instance, such quality-of-life parameters are used a (long-term) disease management program that uses technology solutions such as a patient monitoring and management system with a comprehensive care or in a medication management program that uses technology solutions for behaviors change.

The proposed healthcare system provides a personalized care plan. Patient A with life goals A and patient B with life goals B (different from life goals A) will get as an output of the proposed system:

personalized care plans A and B, respectively, with different structure based on the mapping of life goals to care plan goals which is different for A and B; and

in a preferred embodiment, personalized feedback on their progress to life goals A and B, respectively, based on the actual tracking of care plan goals and their reverse mapping to life goals.

FIG. 3 shows a schematic diagram of a second, more detailed embodiment of a healthcare system 20 according to the present invention, and FIG. 4 shows a schematic diagram of a second embodiment of a healthcare method 200 according to the present invention, by way of which more details of the present invention and of preferred embodiment will be explained hereinafter.

The healthcare system 20 comprises a Life Goals—Care Plan Translator 30, which carries out the steps of the healthcare method 200 and which may be implemented by the processor 11 of the healthcare system 10 shown in FIG. 1. Here in this embodiment the Life Goals—Care Plan Translator 30 is implemented by a back-end clinical server system comprising e.g. a patient management server and a care plan server. Other implementations are, however, possible as well, and the particular way of implementing the system 20 is generally not essential for the present invention.

The Life Goals—Care Plan Translator 30 communicates with a patient's input/feedback device 40 on the patient's side and a clinician's input/feedback device 50 on the clinician's side as well as with various databases 60, which will be explained below in more detail. All these databases may be stored in a common storage, e.g. on a hard disk, or separately in different storage units. They store both predetermined content as well as results of previous steps of the proposed method.

The Life Goals—Care Plan Translator 30 comprises a Life Goals Authoring Tool 31, a Life Goals to Care Plan Goals Mapper 32, a Care Plan Compiler 33, a Care Plan Linker 34, a Care Plan Goals to Life Goals Mapper 35, and a Goals Visualizer 36. These elements 31 to 36 may be implemented on a common processor or on two or more separate processors. Further, they may be implemented as a common software tool or as separate software modules which are coupled together. Still further, they may be implemented through a mixture or hard- and software elements.

The Life Goals Authoring Tool 31 allows the patients to define their own life goals and preferences. The Life Goals Authoring Tool 31 performs step S1 of the method 200 illustrated in FIG. 4.

Although life goals often have an important physiological/physical aspect, they can address a much wider spectrum of the patient's needs. Important other aspects can include emotional, intellectual, social, occupational, spiritual or environmental wellness as outlined by the 7-element model of wellness known e.g. from http://wellness.unl.edu/wellness-model. In an embodiment of the present invention discussed hereinafter an adapted version of it is used for chronically ill patients that comprises the following 6 aspects—physiological/physical, emotional, nutritional, social, spiritual and occupational. These aspects form the care plan goals categories. It should be noted that other models with other care plan goals categories may be used as well leading to a different result of the mapping of life goals to care plan goals categories, but generally allowing the same way of mapping.

Although all these care plan goals categories are important for the patient's wellbeing, they will not all be perceived by the patient as equally important. To address the patient preferences, the Life Goals Authoring Tool 31 preferably requests an input from the patient, e.g. through the patient's input/feedback device 40, in order to identify his personal importance for at least some (preferably all) care plan goals categories.

Summing up, the Life Goals Authoring Tool 31 preferably gathers two main sources of information, both being combined in life goal information. On the one hand the patient's life goals (as indicated in column 1 of Table 1 depicted below) and on the other hand the patient's personal preferences with respect to wellness aspects (column 2 in Table 1). This information may be stored or buffered in a Life Goals database (db) 61 and is passed to the Life Goals to Care Plan Goals Mapper 32 in order to create mapping into Care Plan goals categories.

TABLE 1
Example of patient's life goals and personal preferences
Patient's life goals             Patient's personal preferences
Play (with grandchild/with child/with Physiological/Physical - rank 1
dog/sport)
Do a walking tour of Paris (park, tourist Emotional - rank 2
destination)
Attend major (family/work/friend) Nutritional - rank 3
event - wedding, graduation, reunion)
Attend church every Sunday       Social - rank 4
To do things (drive, care for, cook for Spiritual - rank 5
etc.) for myself
Be pain/anxiety/worry/depression free Occupational - rank 6

The Life Goals to Care Plan Goals Mapper 32 is able to map the patient's defined life goals and preferences (i.e. the life goal information) into care plan goals categories as illustrated by the examples in Tables 2 and 3 depicted below. The Life Goals to Care Plan Goals Mapper 32 performs step S2 of the method 200 illustrated in FIG. 4 and uses the following care plan goals categories, which may e.g. be stored in a Care Plan Goals database 62:

Physiological/Physical—vital signs measurements for detection of symptoms worsening, medication compliance, physical exercises;

Emotional—anxiety, depression, happiness, mood;

Nutritional—diet, weight, and habits;

Social—relationships, friendships, support network;

Spiritual—religious, philosophical, belief system;

Occupational—work, intellect, academia, financial.

TABLE 2
Example 1 of mapping from patient's defined
life goals into care plan goals categories
Mapping
	Care plan goals categories
Patient's life goals	Phys.	Emot.	Nut.	Soc.	Spir.	Occup.
Play (with grandchild/	11	1	1	5	1	1
with child/with dog/
sport)
Do a walking tour of	11	1	1	5	1	1
Paris (park, tourist
destination)
Attend major (family/	9	4	1	4	1	1
work/friend) event -
wedding, graduation,
reunion)
Attend church every	6	1	1	1	10	1
Sunday
To do things (drive,	4	4	1	1	1	9
care for, cook for
etc.) for myself
Total percentages	41%	11%	5%	16%	14%	13%
(100%)

TABLE 3
Example 2 of mapping from patient's defined
life goals into care plan goals categories
Mapping
	Care plan goals categories
Patient's life goals	Phys.	Emot.	Nut.	Soc.	Spir.	Occup.
Be (pain/anxiety/worry/	1	10	1	6	1	1
depression) free
Cook meals for his	1	1	10	6	1	1
family
Support his wife	1	4	1	4	1	9
To not be perceived	1	7	1	7	3	1
as ill
Control the house	1	1	1	1	1	15
finances
Total percentages	5%	23%	14%	24%	7%	27%
(100%)

The mapping coefficients between the patient's life goals and care plan goals categories in Tables 2 and 3 are provided either: 1) manually by the patient's physician, caregiver or a clinician based on his expertise or 2) automatically based on applying techniques such as machine vector learning or cluster analysis on a large patient's database (Life Goals to Care Plan Goals mapping database 63).

The Care Plan Compiler 33 uses the output of the Life Goals to Care Plan Goals Mapper 32 to design the global structure of the care plan and for each care plan goals category creates a specification in terms of types of content elements to be used and time schedule. The Care Plan Compiler 33 performs steps S3 and S4 of the method 200 illustrated in FIG. 4.

The result of step S3 is illustrated in FIG. 5 showing an exemplary care plan structure based on example 1 mapping depicted above in Table 2 and based on care plan duration=1 year (52 weeks) specified in Table 4 and stored in database 67. This value can be overruled by an external source, e.g., total duration of the coaching intervention=duration of a reimbursed intervention, duration required by patient status, duration of a clinical trial, etc. that can be defined by the clinicians and stored in database 67.

During step S4 the Care Plan Compiler 33 refers to care plan content elements, e.g. to one or more of the multi-media content elements depicted in FIG. 6 and stored in database 65, in order to create the specification for each Care Plan goals category. The content elements can be offered as stand-alone or bundled in a module and may include vital chart, medication (meds) cards, educational (edu) videos, surveys/quizzes and/or multi-media messages. Other content elements may be used as well.

In an embodiment Step S4 has a number of additional input parameters as listed in Table 4 that are mainly defined by the clinicians or caregiver and stored in database 67. These parameters allow for even better personalization of the care plan per patient.

TABLE 4
Default value of the input parameters (the table
rows) for each care plan goals category
	Care Plan Goal Categories
	Physio-	Emo-	Nutri-	So-	Spiri-	Occupa-
	logical	tional	tional	cial	tual	tional
Duration	21	6	3	8	7	7
Content Elements per goal category
Vital Charts	+		+
Medication	+
Card
Edu videos	+	+	+	+	+	+
Quizzes/	+	+	+	+	+	+
surveys
Multi-media	+	+	+	+	+	+
messages
Max # of Content Elements
per day	1	1	1	1	1	1
Care Plan Design Rules
Rule 1	No Content Elements in the weekends
Rule 2	A video teaching quiz is scheduled later than the
	corresponding video
Rule 3	A module teaching quiz is scheduled later than the
	corresponding module
. . .
Rule N	Choose a fixed day of the week of a particular content
	element, e.g., videos every Tuesday

The result of step S4 is a care plan specification that is preferably stored in a care plan specification database 64. An example of a care plan specification is illustrated in FIG. 7 for the first four weeks of the care plan duration taking explicitly into account the patient's personal preferences (see column 2 in Table 1) with respect to care plan goals categories. In this example, a module is scheduled for a patient each week day. A module is a bundle of content elements illustrated in FIG. 6.

The Care Plan Linker 34 establishes a link between the types of content elements in each specification (as e.g. shown in FIG. 7) created by the Care Plan Compiler 33 to content identifiers in the library of content elements stored in a multi-media content elements database 65. If there are different instances of a content element in the content library, e.g., different instances of Sign & Symptoms 1 Module for HD TV and mobile device, then the Care Plan Linker 34 will choose the proper content element instance to link to based on information of the available patient's input/feedback device 40. The Care Plan Linker 34 performs Step S5 of the method 200 illustrated in FIG. 4 and outputs a care plan executable stored in a care plan executable database 66.

The Care Plan Goals to Life Goals Mapper 35 maps patient's compliance to care plan goals into life goals progress. This is step S6 of the method 200 illustrated in FIG. 4. The compliance to the care plan goals categories is e.g. measured with a compliance score as proposed in WO 2011/039676 A2. This document discloses a method of assessing a patient's compliance to an intervention specified by a healthcare professional, the method comprising determining a level of compliance for the patient from interactions between the patient and a remote patient management system. This method for assessing a patient's compliance can be analogously applied here, and the corresponding description of this document is incorporated herein by reference. This method is based on advanced patient-care plan interaction tracking. Physiological parameters collected via measurement devices such as weight scale, blood pressure meter, glucose meter, SpO2 meter, activity monitor, medication dispenser, etc. are used as well as psychological parameters collected via patient-content element interaction tracking.

The compliance score to the care plan goals categories combined with the reverse mapping from Table 2 or Table 3 is preferably used by the Care Plan Goals to Life Goals Mapper 35 to calculate a life goals progress score.

The Goals Visualizer 36 visualizes the compliance to care plan goals categories as well as the life goals progress calculated above. This is step S7 of the method 200 illustrated in FIG. 2. The Goals Visualizer 36 offers e.g. a dashboard view to the patient of which an example is given in FIG. 8. The background of the dashboard 70 represents the patient's life goals. The latter are represented by pictures which can be uploaded by the patient or retrieved from a database that contains pictures for the most common life goals.

The dashboard 70 is divided into segments 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76 that represent the different care plan goals categories. The size of each segment represents the mapping coefficient between the patient's life goals and the care plan goals category the segment represents. Further, the brightness of each segment represents the progress towards this particular care plan goals category. For example, in FIG. 8 it can be seen that the patient has progressed well on the social category and hence the corresponding segment 74 is bright, while on the other hand the patient has almost made no progress on the nutritional category and as a result the corresponding segment 73 is almost completely dark. As a result, the dashboard 70 gives a good overview of the progress towards the patient's life goals.

Of course, the patient's progress can also be depicted differently and without use of a dashboard, e.g. by use of conventional charts like pie charts, bar charts, or simply by numbers.

The method 200 illustrated in FIG. 4 also includes a patient's feedback 210 that is collected periodically, e.g., every time interval T of system usage. The patient's feedback consists of at least two parts. First, the system usage statistics that is automatically collected by the system based on the patient-care plan interaction. The Care Plan Goals to Life Goals Mapper 32 of the Life Goals—Care Plan Translator 30 will get all this usage statistics. Second, the patient's preferences assessments can be collected via the Life Goal Authoring Tool 31 of the Life Goals—Care Plan Translator 30. Both parts of the patient's feedback 210 can be used to further personalize the care plan, i.e., refine its design and structure. Another refinement can be done by using a set of reference patient profiles and their corresponding care plans as an extra input during the creation of the personalized care plan.

The proposed healthcare system can e.g. be used as a stand-alone telehealth system or as embedded telehealth service in a patient portal such as the personal health book.

In summary, in order to overcome the above mentioned problems, the proposed invention discloses a (preferably two-directional translation) of patient's defined life goals into a personalized care plan. The latter also includes its underlying health goals and (preferably) reverse.

The proposed solution preferably incorporates a feedback loop which takes into account life goals in order to adapt and personalize the care plan. This personalization is based on the patient's input as to what is the major driver for him/her. The patient enters into the system its personal preferences which, via the feedback loop and the actual situation are presented to the patient. The framework of the care plan is therefore based on the input from the patient, which is formatted into an existing template for calculation purpose.

In the claims, the word “comprising” does not exclude other elements or steps, and the indefinite article “a” or “an” does not exclude a plurality. A single element or other unit may fulfill the functions of several items recited in the claims. The mere fact that certain measures are recited in mutually different dependent claims does not indicate that a combination of these measures cannot be used to advantage.

A computer program may be stored/distributed on a suitable non-transitory medium, such as an optical storage medium or a solid-state medium supplied together with or as part of other hardware, but may also be distributed in other forms, such as via the Internet or other wired or wireless telecommunication systems.

Furthermore, the different embodiments can take the form of a computer program product accessible from a computer usable or computer-readable storage medium providing program code for use by or in connection with a computer or any device or system that executes instructions. For the purposes of this disclosure, a computer usable or computer-readable storage medium can generally be any tangible device or apparatus that can contain, store, communicate, propagate, or transport the program for use by or in connection with the instruction execution device.

In so far as embodiments of the disclosure have been described as being implemented, at least in part, by software-controlled data processing devices, it will be appreciated that the non-transitory machine-readable medium carrying such software, such as an optical disk, a magnetic disk, semiconductor memory or the like, is also considered to represent an embodiment of the present disclosure.

The computer usable or computer-readable storage medium can be, for example, without limitation, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, or a propagation medium. Non-limiting examples of a computer-readable storage medium include a semiconductor or solid state memory, magnetic tape, a removable computer diskette, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), a rigid magnetic disk, and an optical disk. Optical disks may include compact disk-read only memory (CD-ROM), compact disk-read/write (CD-R/W), and DVD.

Further, a computer usable or computer-readable storage medium may contain or store a computer readable or usable program code such that when the computer readable or usable program code is executed on a computer, the execution of this computer readable or usable program code causes the computer to transmit another computer readable or usable program code over a communications link. This communications link may use a medium that is, for example, without limitation, physical or wireless.

A data processing system or device suitable for storing and/or executing computer readable or computer usable program code will include one or more processors coupled directly or indirectly to memory elements through a communications fabric, such as a system bus. The memory elements may include local memory employed during actual execution of the program code, bulk storage, and cache memories, which provide temporary storage of at least some computer readable or computer usable program code to reduce the number of times code may be retrieved from bulk storage during execution of the code.

Input/output, or I/O devices, can be coupled to the system either directly or through intervening I/O controllers. These devices may include, for example, without limitation, keyboards, touch screen displays, and pointing devices. Different communications adapters may also be coupled to the system to enable the data processing system to become coupled to other data processing systems, remote printers, or storage devices through intervening private or public networks. Non-limiting examples are modems and network adapters and are just a few of the currently available types of communications adapters.

The description of the different illustrative embodiments has been presented for purposes of illustration and description and is not intended to be exhaustive or limited to the embodiments in the form disclosed. Many modifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art. Further, different illustrative embodiments may provide different advantages as compared to other illustrative embodiments. The embodiment or embodiments selected are chosen and described in order to best explain the principles of the embodiments, the practical application, and to enable others of ordinary skill in the art to understand the disclosure for various embodiments with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated. Other variations to the disclosed embodiments can be understood and effected by those skilled in the art in practicing the claimed invention, from a study of the drawings, the disclosure, and the appended claims.

Claims

1. A healthcare system for creating a personalized care plan for a user, said healthcare system comprising a processor and a computer-readable storage medium, wherein the computer-readable storage medium contains instructions for execution by the processor, wherein the instructions cause the processor to perform the steps of:

receiving life goal information defined by a user, said life goal information indicating the user's life goals,

mapping the received life goal information into care plan goals categories including two or more categories, and

defining a care plan including a care plan schedule for the care plan goals categories onto which the received life goal information has been mapped, said schedule includes, per care plan goals category, one or more care plan content elements representing elements of the care plan.

2. The healthcare system as claimed in claim 1,

wherein said life goal information includes the user's preferences with respect to said life goals, which user's preferences are taken into account in the mapping of the received life goal information into care plan goals categories.

3. The healthcare system as claimed in claim 1,

wherein said care plan goals categories include two or more categories of the group of categories comprising physiological, emotional, nutritional, social, spiritual, occupational.

4. The healthcare system as claimed in claim 3,

wherein the care plan goals category physiological includes one or more of vital signs measurements for detection of symptoms worsening, medication compliance, physical exercises,

wherein the care plan goals category emotional includes anxiety, depression, happiness, mood,

wherein the care plan goals category nutritional includes diet, weight, and habits,

wherein the care plan goals category social includes relationships, friendships, support network,

wherein the care plan goals category spiritual includes religious, philosophical, belief system, and

wherein the care plan goals category occupational includes work, intellect, academia, financial.

5. The healthcare system as claimed in claim 1,

wherein the computer-readable storage medium further contains instructions for execution by the processor, wherein the instructions cause the processor to perform the step of linking the care plan content elements included in the care plan schedule to content identifiers identifying one of one or more instances of content elements provided in a content library for executing the respective care plan content element on a user's execution device.

6. The healthcare system as claimed in claim 1,

wherein the computer-readable storage medium further contains instructions for execution by the processor, wherein the instructions cause the processor to perform the step of mapping the user's compliance to the care plan and determining the user's compliance score per care plan goals category.

7. The healthcare system as claimed in claim 1,

wherein the computer-readable storage medium further contains instructions for execution by the processor, wherein the instructions cause the processor to perform the step of receiving measurement data from the execution of care plan content element, wherein the measurement data are used for determining the user's compliance score per care plan goals category.

8. The healthcare system as claimed in claim 1,

wherein the computer-readable storage medium further contains instructions for execution by the processor, wherein the instructions cause the processor to perform the step of determining a user's life goal progress score from the user's compliance score per care plan goals category and from a reverse mapping of care plan goals categories into life goal information, said life goal progress score indicating the user's progress with respect to his defined life goals.

9. The healthcare system as claimed in claims 7,

wherein the computer-readable storage medium further contains instructions for execution by the processor, wherein the instructions cause the processor to perform the step of visualizing the user's compliance score per care plan goals category and/or the user's life goal progress score.

10. The healthcare system as claimed in claim 9,

wherein the computer-readable storage medium further contains instructions for execution by the processor, wherein the instructions cause the processor to perform the step of visualizing the user's compliance score per care plan goals category by use of a dashboard in which the score is indicated through color, brightness, a bar and/or a number.

11. The healthcare system as claimed in claim 10,

wherein the dashboard is split into segments, the size of a segment representing the mapping the assigned mapping coefficient and/or the color and/or brightness representing the corresponding user's compliance score.

12. The healthcare system as claimed in claim 1,

wherein the computer-readable storage medium further contains instructions for execution by the processor, wherein the instructions cause the processor to perform the step of determining a mapping coefficient per care plan goals category indicating the amount, importance and/or user's preference of the received life goal information mapped into the respective care plan goals categories.

13. The healthcare system as claimed in claim 12,

wherein the computer-readable storage medium further contains instructions for execution by the processor, wherein the instructions cause the processor to perform the step of determining the mapping coefficients by use of machine learning or cluster analysis.

14. The healthcare system as claimed in claim 1,

wherein the computer-readable storage medium further contains instructions for execution by the processor, wherein the instructions cause the processor to perform the step of receiving a mapping coefficient per care plan goals category, a mapping coefficient indicating the amount, importance and/or user's preference of the received life goal information mapped into the respective care plan goals categories.

15. The healthcare system as claimed in claim 1,

wherein the care plan content elements comprise one or more of a time information representing the duration and/or time of executing of a care plan content element, a vital chart, a medication care, an educational video, a survey, a quiz, a multimedia message.

16. The healthcare system as claimed in claim 1,

wherein the computer-readable storage medium further contains instructions for execution by the processor, wherein the instructions cause the processor to perform the steps of receiving care plan personalization information indicating the maximum number of care plan content elements per care plan goals category and/or care plan design rules for use in defining the care plan, and defining the care plan by use of said care plan personalization information.

17. A healthcare method for creating a personalized care plan for a user, said method comprising the steps of:

receiving life goal information defined by a user, said life goal information indicating the user's life goals,

mapping the received life goal information into care plan goals categories including two or more categories, and

defining a care plan including a care plan schedule for the care plan goals categories onto which the received life goal information has been mapped, said schedule includes, per care plan goals category, one or more care plan content elements representing elements of the care plan.

18. A computer-readable non-transitory storage medium containing instructions for execution by a processor, wherein the instructions cause the processor to perform the steps of the healthcare method as claimed in claim 17.

19. A healthcare system for creating a personalized care plan for a user, said system comprising

a life goals authorizer that is configured to receive life goal information defined by a user, said life goal information indicating the user's life goals,

a life goals mapper that is configured to map the received life goal information into care plan goals categories including two or more categories, and

a care plan compiler that is configured to define a care plan including a care plan schedule for the care plan goals categories onto which the received life goal information has been mapped, said schedule includes, per care plan goals category, one or more care plan content elements representing elements of the care plan.

20. The healthcare system as claimed in claim 19, further comprising

a care plan linker that is configured to link the care plan content elements included in the care plan schedule to content identifiers identifying one of one or more instances of content elements provided in a content library for executing the respective care plan content element on a user's execution device,

a care plan mapper that is configured to determine a user's life goal progress score from the user's compliance score per care plan goals category and from a reverse mapping of care plan goals categories into life goal information, said life goal progress score indicating the user's progress with respect to his defined life goals,

a visualizer that is configured to visualize a user's compliance score per care plan goals category and/or a user's life goal progress score,

a user's execution device that is configured to execute care plan content elements, and/or

one or more measurement devices that are configured to acquire measurement data from the execution of care plan content element, wherein the measurement data are used for determining a user's compliance score per care plan goals category.