What is Case Management in Home Care?

1. What is Case Management?

The term "case management" is utilized in home health to describe a method of oversight that is practiced to effectively manage patient care episodes. This method focuses on the ability to accurately assess the acuity of home care patients as well as the ability to provide and coordinate high-quality care that appropriately meets the patient's needs. The case manager is responsible for managing multiple patients holistically and across time, and this concept provides the framework.

2. Who Can Case Manage: The Role and Skill Set Required

The provision of patient care in the home can at times be a daunting task. Providing care in the home requires a specialized skill set that includes experience in clinical practice, leadership skills, strong reasoning and decision making skills, organizational skills, and more. As one can imagine, the home care practice setting is not for everyone. In this chapter, we examine the desired attributes of a case manager and the scope of this very important role.

3. Case Management of a Patient: What is Managed?

There are many aspects of care that must be managed throughout the course of a patient episode. This chapter identifies the specific areas that require close supervision, oversight, and management. A patient example is shown to better illustrate these complexities.

4. Effective Case Management: Use of the Individualized Care Plan

Provision of patient care in home care is more than providing specific tasks to a patient. The patient must be considered/assessed from a holistic perspective, meaning the home care clinician is responsible for identifying not only patient medical problems but the problems associated with the environment in which the patient lives that may impact their ability to medically improve and successfully achieve desired outcomes. The home care clinician must develop an appropriate plan to support mutually agreed upon goals for improvement in the patient environmental situations that impact care as well as support improvement of their medical status. Once this individual plan is developed, it must be managed. The individualized patient plan of care is the road map clinicians utilize to assure that the care is managed effectively across all disciplines. This chapter looks closely at the aspects of patient care that must be carefully managed.

5. Managing a Caseload of Patients

Successful caseload management is directly related to the organizational skills of the case manager. This chapter discusses organizational strategies and tips to support effective caseload management. There are different models for the organization or oversight of care management. Some of the ways to effectively manage caseloads will be presented and explored.

6. The Positive Impact of Case Management

Healthier, happier patients and community can have a lot of benefits, including improved clinical and financial outcomes. This can lead to better relationships with referral sources and physicians. This chapter discusses the ways positive case management can impact home care.