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Staff at a California hospital found rapid mortality reviews conducted soon after a patient death resulted in the treatment team identifying opportunities to improve the patient’s care in more than 40% of the cases. The team conducting the rapid mortality reviews concluded this technique can offer advantages over the standard retrospective case reviews, provider surveys, and structured morbidity and mortality conferences.
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No knew the world would be in the grips of COVID-19 in 2016. That is when Johns Hopkins Hospital unveiled a first-of-its-kind Capacity Command Center (CCC), a high-tech control room designed to apply all the latest analytical tools to bed management, patient transfers, and surge planning. CCC leaders have spent the last five years working around the clock to optimize patient flow and anticipate any potential bottlenecks. But there is no question the concept has been put to the test by pandemic conditions. How did it fare?
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In the pandemic and post-pandemic times, case management leaders can take many steps to help their staff prevent mental health issues, like trauma, stress, burnout, post-traumatic stress disorder, and others.
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Since the COVID-19 pandemic forced a shutdown in the United States, nurses, case managers, and other healthcare professionals have faced high levels of stress, burnout, and occupational trauma. A year after the pandemic began, more than half of nurses said they have felt exhausted within the previous two weeks.
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The Patient Activation Measure can help case managers discover how engaged patients are with their care and what types of services and assistance they may need.
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As case managers work harder to meet their organizations’ patient engagement goals — particularly in the value-based care model — evidence-based tools can help them succeed. One such tool is the Patient Activation Measure, a scale that describes four stages of activation. Research showed the tool to be a valid and reliable instrument to measure activation and to help patients individualize care plans.
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Social workers play a vital role on the interdisciplinary care team across the continuum of care. Working in concert with RN case managers and other members of the healthcare team, they assist in guiding and tracking patients over time through physical health, mental health, and social services, spanning all levels of intensity.
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Regardless of whether they realize it, case managers have likely worked with patients who are living with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia. The diagnosis rate is relatively low. Even when a formal diagnosis is made, treatment is not necessarily offered — and for many patients, the diagnosis largely is overlooked.
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What good are data if they are not used? Many case management departments collect data and report trends, but the information is only as good as how the hospital uses it. The extra effort is worth it. Case managers and their departments who use data in meaningful ways experience better outcomes — but the decision to be resourceful often starts higher up.
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As the pandemic continues, some healthcare facilities worldwide are providing acute care to patients in their homes. This is a necessity in places where the health systems have been overwhelmed. In other places, it is a way to provide care that might even be safer for certain medically stable patients.
