All Entries Tagged With: "core measures"
Time-saving strategies for hospital case managers!
The job of a hospital case manager is complex, to say the least. Between keeping up with regulatory changes, ensuring proper clinical documentation, planning for appropriate discharge, and making sure patients receive adequate care while your facility maintains fiscal integrity, it can be difficult to juggle all that needs to be done.
In an upcoming issue of Case Management Monthly, we’d like to feature the top ten time-saving tips for hospital case managers from you, our readers. Help your fellow hospital case management professionals beat the stress of their job and optimize their time by sharing your best time-saving strategies. Send your tips to Managing Editor Janelle Randazza; all selected entrants will be featured in the June 2009 issue of Case Management Monthly and will receive a free copy of the issue.
CMW Tip of the Week: Case managers and core measures
This week’s tip, an “Ask the Expert” is provided by June Stark, RN, BSN, MEd.
Q: What role does the case manager play in coordinating and implementing core measures?
A: The primary barrier to having a case manager in this role is that it adds yet another responsibility to an already overburdened caseload.
If a case manager accepts the responsibility of becoming involved in the core measure process, this should not mean he or she becomes the leader of the project or carries out the core measures at the bedside. Instead, the case manager performs what is called “the sweep,” which is a final review of a patient’s chart.
This is the last opportunity to make sure all the core measures have been carried out and documented by the staff nurses and physicians throughout a patient’s entire hospital stay. In essence, the case manager has the final word on the completion and documentation of the core measures.
Have a tip or tool you’d like to share? Or maybe a question for our experts? E-mail it to editor Julie McGinley at jmcginley@hcpro.com.Your thoughts could be featured in the next issue of Case Management Weekly!
