Employee Management
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Shared Decision-Making Also Can Work with Patients’ Guardians
Patients often lack the cognitive capacity to make their own decisions. In those cases, a family member or another person might be legally appointed medical power of attorney or guardian.
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Tips for Coaching Patients to Talk with Doctors
Many patients find it challenging to speak with their physicians and ask questions. Case managers can serve as a go-between for patients and as an interpreter, teaching patients how to make the most of these doctor-patient encounters. -
Develop Best Practices for Shared Decision-Making
Case managers are learning more about how to include patients in their care transitions, as part of shared decision-making. The first step in shared decision-making is to assess the patient’s situation, followed by educating the patient about all facets of their self-care and health management. -
Hospital at Home Model Benefits from Traditional QI Approach
The Hospital at Home care model is gaining favor with hospitals and health systems as a way to provide hospital-level care in a patient’s home while lowering costs by almost one-third and reducing complications. The approach is receiving more attention now as a way to avoid asking patients to come to the hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Keeping an Eye on Mental Health
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that nearly 20% of U.S. adults were living with a mental illness in 2019 — and that percentage shockingly doubled to 40% in 2020. For young adults in particular, the rate of suicidal thoughts rose to an alarming 25%. Since hospital case managers typically have a front-row view of what is happening in the healthcare world, they no doubt have seen these statistics firsthand.
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Technology Can Help Patients with Self-Care of Pain
Patients experiencing chronic pain could improve their self-care by using a novel, digital pain management tool, according to the results of a recent study. The Manage My Pain app was part of a study that included chronic pain participants in both urban and rural pain clinics. Researchers wanted to find out if the app would help with patient care during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown in which in-person patient visits dropped to a small percentage overnight.
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Health System Nursing Students Follow Up with High-Risk Patients During Pandemic
Health systems and their case management or population health departments could benefit from providing student nurses with clinical experience opportunities, such as calling complex care patients for follow-up. Nursing students, following a script aimed at assessing social determinants of health, contacted the high-risk patients of UC San Diego Health.
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The Balancing Act: Patient Satisfaction and the Hospital Bottom Line
In some ways, it seems that it is nearly impossible to please both the hospital administration and the patients and their families, especially in times of crisis. However, the case manager is in a unique position to bring both along — assuming they have the right tools to do so. Without the help of a wise and invested hospital case manager, the chances of a positive experience for the patient are lower, and hospital spending is more likely to be higher.
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PATH-s Tool Helps Caregivers Understand What Is Needed
Researchers developed a transition care tool that helps caregivers better understand their role and what is expected of them in supporting and caring for patients. A new study on the Preparedness Assessment for the Transition Home After Stroke revealed what caregivers understand about patients’ disease and their own role.
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Take Steps to Prevent Damaging Security Breaches in Survey Studies
IRBs can help investigators create a plan to prevent survey security breaches that can lead to false data and study slowdowns and shutdowns. IRBs should ensure researchers know that if they detect a breach that changes/corrupts data, leads to someone outside the research team accessing data, causes potential harm to participants, or requires a change in procedures or informed consent, it should be reported to the IRB.