Clinical case management

The case manager has the role of coordinating the care delivered to patients. This involves coordination of the team involved in the delivery of care to a patient during a visit, managerial responsibilities and clinical responsibilities involved on intervention. The case manager mobilizes the whole healthcare team and ensures the best blend is produced among them to ensure efficient delivery of health services to a patient. The case manager also facilitates communications among the care providers and between the care providers and hierarchies involved in patient management. (Mullahy, 1998) He/she obtains information from the patient, the patient’s loved ones and the care givers and informs them accordingly with the relevant information with regard to the patient care. The case manager is thus a vital source of information for the various parties in patient care, and his/her absence in a clinical case or the absence of this information and communication role can paralyze the care delivery system. Also with the information obtained from the patient and his/her family, the case manager can anticipate the requirements for the care of the patient, make the necessary plans and initiate the given plans. (More and Mandall, 1997)

In the current capacity as a nurse case manager, case management roles played revolve around coordination of healthcare services, comprehensive assessment of cases whereby cases are deeply understood, monitored, evaluated and thus a plan for the care of the patient is derived. The nurse case manager is also highly involved in the screening and eligibility determination of cases, thereby mobilizing and coming up with the care resources and humane personnel, thereby ensuring provision of quality healthcare to patients.

There can be innovations and improvements that can be implemented in the current clinical case management practice to improve the quality of care. One can be to initiate a more compressed patient follow up plan. If the patients are followed up after every month, they could be followed up on a fortnight basis. This can help to predict health events more precisely and avert emergencies. A policy can also be implemented, requiring all nurses intending to work as case managers to undertake a business management course. This will help them more in discerning the best way to utilize available resources to achieve global healthcare goals.

References

Mullahy,C.(1998). The case manager's handbook, Gaithersburg, Md.: Aspen Publishers.

P. & Mandell, S. (1997).  Nursing case management, New York: McGraw-Hill.