Experts: CMs need to adopt a life-long learner attitude
Organizations should encourage learning
Executive Summary
Today’s case manager needs to be a life-long learner, adopting interactive communication skills, improving organizational skills, and maintaining professionalism, according to a case management expert.
- Certain qualities are essential for case managers regardless of where they work.
- Case managers who moved into this role because the physical demands of nursing became too difficult often would get into a rut and be unable or unwilling to learn new CM strategies.
- Case management departments need to assess their own effectiveness, strengths, and weaknesses.
No matter where case managers work, they need interactive communication skills, organizational skills, and professionalism, or else they contribute to a fractured healthcare system, a case management author says.
And to achieve best practices in case management today, they also need to be life-long learners, says Teresa Treiger, RN-BC, MA, CHCQM-CM/TOC, principal with Ascent Care Management in Quincy, MA. Treiger has written papers about professional case management and also has co-authored a book, titled, Collaborate For Professional Case Management: A Universal Competency-Based Paradigm, on the topic.
“There are qualities, characteristics, and competencies that need to be common across the spectrum,” Treiger says. “It doesn’t matter whether you work in acute care case management or another setting — you need to be able to think critically through issues and challenges and come up with creative solutions to addressing a client’s barriers to care.”
To achieve this goal, a case manager must have an attitude of life-long learning, she adds.
“I know plenty of case managers, who — as long as they understood institutional knowledge — were considered experts and were deemed the go-to people,” she explains. “This didn’t have anything to do with their understanding of the case management process or the resources available for a client.”
These CMs knew their own niche and hoarded that information, Treiger says.
“They could be horrible communicators and were not life-long learners,” she adds. “Their clients almost became the obstruction to their being able to get home on time.”
Often, case managers will get into a rut because of their inability or unwillingness to learn new strategies in case management, and this is an industry problem related to why and how people become case managers in the first place, Treiger says.
“Case managers come from a multitude of professional disciplines, the majority of which are RNs and social workers,” she adds. “But you can also have occupational therapists, physicians, etc., and that’s just the beginning of the problem.”
Traditionally, many people went into case management because they were no longer able to handle the physical challenges of bedside nursing, Treiger notes.
“Depending on the motivations for people going into case management, it really affects how they view their work; is it just a job, or is it a calling?” she adds.
There are numerous reasons why a person would want to become a case manager after working years as a nurse. For instance, Treiger recalls the time she turned her back to a patient in the emergency room, and the patient kicked her across the room: “That wasn’t fun.”
While this wasn’t the reason she transitioned into case management, she can see why these types of incidents might lead others to do so.
Problems occur when case managers look at their role as just a job and do not make an effort to grow and improve their skills, Treiger adds. “For some people, it’s just a job; they’re not interested in taking it to that next level.”
The key is for individual case managers to enrich their knowledge and experience with additional courses, she says.
Also, each case management department should assess its strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities, Treiger suggests.
“We need to go beyond having a case management department that closes out X number of cases a week or a month,” Treiger says. “We want to set the standards for excellence in case management in our region or state, or achieve whatever the goals are, and we really need a commitment to doing this.”
When assessing a case management department’s strengths and weaknesses, it’s a good idea to assess whether individual case managers’ critical thinking skills have improved, she notes.
“If an organization has a really good case management department, it has regular grand rounds where people talk about their challenging cases,” she explains. “It’s about developing performance requirements that are not quantitative, but qualitative.”
Organizations also can help case managers be life-long learners by encouraging them to join professional organizations and to attend conferences and workshops. They can provide tuition reimbursement for these pursuits and request that the conference-goer brings back information to the rest of the team, sharing what they’ve learned in short, onsite learning sessions, Treiger says.
“That’s a step in the right direction, and it’s not such an involved process,” she adds. “Every little bit of progress in that direction bodes well for case management overall.”
The future of case management likely will be where individuals who have the title have an advanced degree, Treiger says.
“Clinical nurse specialists and nurse practitioners now are recognized as individual practitioners by Medicare,” she adds. “If case managers want to move in that direction, the field has to up the ante on educational level and qualifications, and we have to be much more of an advocate for title protection: Everyone can’t call themselves a case manager and have it mean anything.”
Today’s case manager needs to be a life-long learner, adopting interactive communication skills, improving organizational skills, and maintaining professionalism, according to a case management expert.
Subscribe Now for Access
You have reached your article limit for the month. We hope you found our articles both enjoyable and insightful. For information on new subscriptions, product trials, alternative billing arrangements or group and site discounts please call 800-688-2421. We look forward to having you as a long-term member of the Relias Media community.