Stable and Chronic Illness

And as we continue with definitions, I’ll define stable and chronic illness for you. It's a problem with an expected duration of at least a year or until the death of a patient. For the purpose of defining chronicity, conditions are treated as chronic or not stage or severity changes (examples such as uncontrolled diabetes and controlled diabetes are a single chronic condition).Their treatment goal is not stable, even if the condition has not changed and there is no short term threat to life or function. For example, a patient with persistently poorly controlled intraocular pressures for whom better control is a goal is not stable, even if the pressures are not changing and the patient is asymptomatic. The risk for morbidity without treatment is significant. And examples may include well-controlled hypertension, non-insulin dependent diabetes, cataract, or benign prostatic hyperplasia. 

Thank you for that Maritza and we understand completely that some of the examples that we may note are debatable statements and that depending on the history that patient presents with may fall into simple and self-limiting or stable, unstable or even acute with uncomplicated course of history or acute with a certain outcome. All of those things can be associated with some of the examples that we give. Although, the history is no longer an element of medical decision making, it's important in your decision making process with respect to where you place the problem with respect to stability or severity and outcome and they definitely influence whether its a level two or level three or level four, maybe even level five problem at that particular time. So, thank you Maritza.