The following articles from The Center for Case Management's newsletter, The New Definition, are available for viewing. Our most recent articles do not require membership to access.

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• Spring/Summber 2012 - Vol 27. No 1 - "Highly-Reliable Hospital Case Management : Defining Patient/Family-Centered Standards." What Highly-Reliable Means - According to Webster, the adjective “reliable” means “consistently good in quality or performance; able to be trusted”. Going one degree further, “Highly-reliable” is the new phrase for describing hospitals that provide consistent delivery of safety and quality. Dr. Mark Chassin, MD, FACP,MPP, MPH, President and CEO of The Joint Commissio n believes that the concept of high reliability will be a game changer if safe and effective processes are executed and sustained over long periods of time.....

• Spring/Summer 2011 - Vol 26. No 1 - "Everything I Learned from Case Management I Used...As a Camp Nurse!" : With summer finally on the way, I am fondly remembering my one extremely hot week as an infirmary nurse at an all- girls' camp in the Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts. That summer my daughter was a head counselor, and so I took the challenge of stretching from my comfortable knowledge base of case management to a new role as hands-on nurse after many years without that pleasure. Usually learning goes the other way around-from life experiences to case manager, which I consider one of the most complex roles in health care or maybe anywhere else. But for this challenge, the learning went from case management to camp nurse, only to confirm that what we do in case management is universal and the principles are sound.

• Winter/Spring 2010 - Vol 25. No 1 online edition - "Giving Nursing What it Needs: A Case Management Checklist": Whether assigned by unit, service, or mixture of deployment models, case management nurses and social workers have a responsibility to the nurses who share their patients. Although this may seem obvious, clarifying the actual deliverables from case management services to nursing colleagues might make the relationship between the two groups more collaborative and hence, more satisfying. It is important to differentiate what nursing needs to support its own responsibilities versus what nursing WANTS to reduce its legitimate workload.

• Spring/Summer 2009 - Vol 24. No 1 online edition - "The Six Core Functions of Case Management Services": Case Management services continue to evolve as they touch almost every operation in the hospital and move into the center of the decision-making around and with each patient and family. In many ways, case management as an overall process of connecting resources to needs has not substantially changed over the last 200 year.....

• Spring/Summer 2008 - "Setting the Gold Standard for Social Work: Validating FTEs for Highest Quality Service": With the ever changing health care landscape, Social Work departments find themselves in precarious conditions to deliver high quality care while effectively managing the operational costs of the organization.....

• Fall 2007 - "Community Case Management: A Caring Blend of Heart, Art and Science": The Community Case Management program is an integral part of Overlake's Senior Care program. Senior Care is a multifaceted program designed to mobilize the vast array of health resources available through Overlake Hospital Medical Center and Eastside physicians.....

• Spring/Summer 2007 - "It's Not the 'Notice', It's the 'Message' that Matters: Addressing Patients' Rights to be Informed of Discharge and Rights to Appeal" On July 1, 2007 a revision of the practice of notifying Medicare Beneficiaries of their discharge rights became effective. Hospitals are required to use a two step process to assure that Medicare Beneficiaries can exercise their rights......

• Fall 2006 - "Programs of Care: Governing Clinical Practice Across Time and Place" What would you as an administrator give to have the whole organization at all levels working together to improve the outcomes of patient care, not only inside but outside of your walls?

• Summer 2006 - "Social Power and Influence of a Case Management Service: Invisible No Longer" Describing Case Management can be very difficult. However if we use the range of Social Power and Influence inherent to the role, Case Management services will be better able to negoiate and meet targets.

• Spring 2006 - "Job Descriptions Essential for Hospital Physician Advisors" Read on as to why the Physician Advisor/Director Case Management services is a fundamental role in both payer and provider organizations.

• Winter 2006 - "Careless Care: The Slippery Slope Down Safety Mountain" Ensuring patient safety is at the forefront of initiatives in health care, seemingly as an huge endeavor as a mountain to be scaled. Read one patients true story presented as a chance to study the slope of events.

• Fall 2005 - "CareGraph™ Clinical Progressions: The Flexible, Visual Clinical Path!" An outcome evaluation tool that describes incremental changes from 0-4 in the clinical status of acutely ill patients, organized by Assessment Category and time-frame, enabling a rapid visual comparison of clinical progressions and their variations.

• Summer 2005 - "The Most Vulnerable Unit: Crisis on the Horizon": tackles the thorny issue of identifying and turning around a vulnerable unit before a crisis occurs.

• Winter 2005 - Upgrading Case Management to Prevent "Maxing Out": Takes a close look at the role of case management in acute care and provides 10 recommendations to keep these departments producing significant results.

• Summer 2004 - Capitalizing on Social Work Expertise in Sentinel Events: Reviews the trend data of Sentinel Events and how Social Workers can provide leadership to prevent these occurences.
• Winter 2004 - "Looking Under the Sheets: The Case Manager's Practice of Direct Contact with Patients and Families" An argument that direct contact with patients should be a fundamental part of the case management role.
• Fall 2003 - "Integrated care pathways: eleven international trends." Appeared in Journal Of Integrated Care Pathways
• Summer 2003 - "Planning for the Day, the Pay, the Stay and the Way." Clearing up the ambiguity of Case Management-related duties.
• Winter 2003 - "Healthcare, 2003 : Teflon^(r) Managing Jello^(r)." There is a growing crisis in which the essential knowledge workers cannot keep up with the knowledge or the work.
• Summer 2002 - Getting to "Yes" When Payers Say "No" - The Importance of a Strong Denial Management Program
• Winter 2001 - Where Process Meets Practice: The New Physician UR Advisor
• Spring 2001 - DataMap^TM: A Dashboard to Guide the Executive Team

Note: You must be a Member before viewing the following archived articles. Not a member? Fill out a short form for your free membership.

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Archived articles include:

• Fall 2000 - Case Management Meets the Revenue Cycle
• Spring 2000 - Observation Status: Time to Take Control
• Winter 1999 - Scaling the Outlier Brick Wall: The Long Stay Action Board
• Fall 1999 - Time to Build Clinical Linkages with Your Home Health Provider
• Summer 1998 - Using Funnels to Prioritize Populations in Need