A redesign of the care coordination department at Riverside Medical Center in Kankakee, IL, assigns utilization review tasks to dedicated nurses, freeing up case managers to spend more time with patients and develop a close working relationship with physicians to facilitate smooth and timely progression of care.
In the past, case managers and discharge planners have concentrated on how to get patients out of the hospital, but now they also need to focus on how to keep them from coming back, says Deborah Hale, CCS, CCDS, president and chief executive officer of Administrative Consultant Service, a healthcare consulting firm based in Shawnee, OK.