Case managers have long faced challenges related to caring for patients who are affected by social determinants of health. These factors have become even more of an issue since the implementation of healthcare reform, with the introduction of accountable care organizations and other innovative projects.
The most important means of identifying and documenting social determinants of health (SDoH) is establishing a strong patient screening program. Recording codes for SDoHs in the medical record can be time-consuming, so streamlining your screening process can make this job less arduous and more accurate.
Older adults are dying from falls in increasing numbers, according to a June 4 research letter published in JAMA. For reasons that aren’t yet clear, the number of adults age 75 and older who died from a fall rose from 8,613 in 2000 to 25,189 in 2016.
The field of case management is rapidly evolving as hospital leaders look to case managers to help them meet a host of new regulatory requirements and financial goals. But too often this has put undue pressure on case managers and taken focus off their most important job—coordinating care.
Today, case managers and social workers have become cross-trained in many areas, creating ambiguity about the distinctive education they must use to support patients in different ways. A scoping exercise can serve as an objective way to determine team roles.
