Care management

Abstract

Care management is an emerging strategy that is representative of a multidisciplinary perspective and seeks to extend the reach and enhance targeted interventions to complex patient populations across health-care settings and providers. By expanding the scope of traditional medical care, care management has the capacity to promote continuity of care and mitigate the unnecessary utilization of health-care resources while also supporting disease self-management for patients. Care managers serve as liaisons between multiple stakeholders involved in patient care, such as specialists and allied health professionals, health insurance companies, community-based services, and hospital-based services. They often conduct in-depth patient assessments and spend time discussing, locating, and coordinating patient resource needs. As a result of the diverse skill set that is required, care managers are usually nurses, social workers, or other allied health professionals who have the training and expertise to work alongside health-care providers, patients, and ancillary care services.