All Entries Tagged With: "patient advocacy"
Case Management Week is almost upon us
Case managers, next week is all about you. October 11-17, is National Case Management Week, which is your opportunity to spread awareness about what case managers do and how they improve healthcare across the continuum of care.
Several case management associations have released information that describes how you and your staff members can celebrate all things case management.
If you are looking for National Case Management Week posters, banners, and pins check out the American Case Management Association’s National Case Management Week catalog.
The Case Management Society of America (CMSA) put out a 20-page packet that is full of ways you can raise case management awareness:
- Individual activities
- Tell 10 other professionals you are a case manager.
- Offer to speak at community events on case management.
- Write letters to your local paper. Contact radio and TV stations to let them know about CM Week.
- Write a guest editorial to newspapers, journals or magazines regarding the positive impact of case management.
- Distribute a press release announcing National CM Week.
- Community activities
- Host a celebration or reception to recognize a case manager in your community.
- Host professional seminars and workshops for health professionals in your community.
- Arrange exhibits and displays in public facilities.
This is not an exhaustive list. See the full list of suggestions at the CMSA Web site
Please share your plans for National Case Management Week.
Guidance to ‘the most appropriate level of care’
Case managers serve as the patient’s advocate to promote safe, quality care during the patient’s stay in the hospital and after discharge. Sounds like the ideal job, right? For nurses who “live” the role, rather than “do” the job, it truly is. Grace’s story is one that conveys how complex, yet fulfilling living the role can be.
Grace read the physician’s orders for Diane to begin outpatient dialysis upon her return to her nursing home. Grace began looking for a dialysis center that would be close to Diane’s nursing home and had chairs available. However, the center that would accept Diane was quite a distance from the nursing home. If Grace were to receive treatment at the facility, she would need to be transported via ambulance three times each week for treatment. Unfortunately, this circumstance was not unusual, so Grace proceeded with making tentative arrangements.
When Grace entered Diane’s room to discuss her treatment, she saw Diane lying on her side. She was thin, drawn, and severely contracted with tunneling decubiti throughout her body. With the slightest movement, she cried out in pain. However she was alert, oriented and communicative. Throughout Grace’s long career as a case manager, she had symbolically seen Diane far too many times.
Grace approached Diane with a warm smile and a trusting, caring tone of voice. After explaining her reason for being there, Grace began to question Diane in order to determine her mental competency and ability to make decisions. After all, Grace was there to determine what Diane needed and wanted, not just to tell her to do what the physician had ordered. Grace sought Diane’s consent for the treatment plan. She explained the risks, benefits and alternatives of her plan for continuing dialysis as an outpatient. [more]
Can Twitter improve healthcare communication?
Twitter, the social network based around the phrase “What are you doing right now?”, continues to gain popularity in world of healthcare. But can it help improve communication with patients’ families?
Children’s Medical Center in Dallas thinks so.
The latest facility to “tweet” during surgery (a concept created in February by Henry Ford Health System), Children’s sees the technology as a way to help communication between physicians and families.
Read more about the idea here.
Do you use Twitter? Know anyone that does? Feel free to share your thoughts.
What do hospital case managers do, anyway?
This is a question frequently asked by patients, family members, physicians, and other members of the medical staff.
Many people think that case managers are discharge planners, and that the only time a patient needs a case manager is when he or she has discharge needs. Case management is much more than that. It is important that we make sure that, not only do patients and families know what case management is, but that the nursing staff members know also.
Case managers work in forces behind the scenes, much like the crowd of people in the Verizon commercials. Case management is a hidden resource for patients. Often, the case managers work in the trenches, with their heads in charts, communicating with an interdisciplinary team of healthcare professionals to make sure that the patient is moving smoothly through the continuum of care, and there are no delays or detours in their care. This is usually an unknown aspect of case management.
Hospital personnel and the public need to be aware that case managers are advocates for all patients; they ensure that their healthcare facility and professionals are doing what is truly right for the patient, in the right setting, receiving the most appropriate care, and in the most cost-effective manner. Case management follows the patient’s plan of care to make sure that it is appropriate and timely, that their hospital admission status is appropriate, that their discharge planning is initiated, and that goals are set to meet the discharge plan. It is imperative that the case manager build a relationship with the patient and their families in order to reach a mutual goal of discharge.
It is also important for the bedside nurses to know that case managers are an excellent resource for them in planning the patients’ care and goals. One thing I did at our institution while we were redesigning our case management model was to do a mandatory in-service to nursing staff on how case management affects not only patient outcomes, but the financial outcomes for hospitals.
At our institution this year, we included a station on case management and interdisciplinary rounds at the nursing annual competency testing. Case management had a display booth with information about what case management is and the importance of interdisciplinary rounds. We also had a test for the nurses to complete. The comments we received from staff were very interesting.
Does your institution do anything like this? Are you confident that nursing staff members truly understand what case management is?
And one more important question: Do your physicians really know what case management is?
CMW Tip of the Week: Investigate transportation options for patients from the ED
This week’s tip comes from Kathleen Walsh, RN, MS.
Many patients are brought to the ED by ambulance or dropped off by a friend or family member and do not have transportation home once medically cleared. For these patients, the case manager could try, with the patient’s help, to call family, friends, or neighbors for assistance. Some EDs offer bus or subway tokens, or prearranged taxicab company vouchers. For others, developing contracts with local ambulance companies for chair-van services at a reduced rate is helpful.
Investigate whether a hospital ATM machine could be used by the patient to secure cash for a cab or whether the patient/family will be able to pay a cab with cash at home.
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!
Improve patient advocacy by creating a managed care partnership
Managed care companies are viewed as the Goliath to a case management program’s David. Although they may be perceived by some as the angry giant battling the defenseless healthcare facility, some organizations have found there’s a friendly way to allay an intimidating beast.
One hospital says, however, that creating a partnership with a managed care company doesn’t have to be a battle.
“ When you create a trusting partnership with managed care companies, greater opportunities for patient care present themselves,” explains Laura Ostrowsky, RN, MPA, CCM, director of case management at Memorial Sloan-Kettering.
In 2003, Ostrowsky set out to develop a patient advocacy program under her facility’s case management umbrella with the help of Robin Campbell, RN, MPA, insurance liaison manager at Memorial Sloan-Kettering.
Campbell and Ostrowsky knew the program would require a solid educational component for physicians and patients. To ensure a solid case for patient treatment, Memorial Sloan-Kettering’s case managers are diligent about:
- Collecting data on progressive treatments Memorial Sloan-Kettering performs that other facilities might not
- Analyzing the data to identify trends of success, which are later used to build a case for payers
- Determining how to present the data to get the best financial return from payers
We highlight this story, in detail, in our January issue of Case Management Monthly, but what are you doing at your facility to improve relationships with your managed care companies. What are some struggles you face?
CMW Tip of the Week: Talk with patients to determine outcome goals
This week’s tip, an “Ask the Expert,” comes from Karen Zander, RN, MS, CMAC, FAAN.
Q: We social worker and nurse case managers have caseloads that are too big and we don’t know when to discharge patients from the practice. How long should patients be followed?
A: There is a point at which the best interventions either work or don’t work for a particular patient. That point should be preset and constantly discussed between the disease manager and the patient. Ask questions such as, “How will we both know when you feel like the master of your disability/disease/condition?” Making the outcomes (patient goals) measurable and writing them down at the beginning is the best way to keep them in focus. Patient goals should be evaluated regularly.
Have a tip you’d like to share? Or maybe a question for our experts? Email it to editor Julie McGinley at jmcginley@hcpro.com.Your thoughts could be featured in the next issue of Case Management Weekly!
