The concept of care management has been around for as long as people have been caring for others who are ill. Before the onset of our mobile society and technology, the family was the care management team. Multi-generational families all lived in the same home and the family members provided the care management services.
Today the complexity of care, the pace of our society, the technology available, the specialization of care and the mobility of our society all impact on the family’s role as care managers. To fill that void, the care or case manager role has surfaced.
These individuals typically come from a social work or nursing background. Depending on the needs of the senior or disabled person, they may require more or less of either of these sets of professional skills. Most often the needs are in the clinical realm, and an individual with nursing skills may be more valuable since they have both the clinical and the psychosocial skills.
There are care or case managers in the hospital, and they are valuable assets for planning for safe discharge care, but these professionals do not plan for all of the contingencies post-discharge to the home. They do not have the time or information to prepare intermediate and long-term care planning. That is where the private care manager can step in and make their impact. They can follow the senior across time and provide for anticipatory planning to prevent a crisis. They work with the family, caregivers and the healthcare team to anticipate and plan for a safe experience regardless of where the senior resides.
Care or case managers may develop the plan of care and manage that plan, or they may hand the plan of care to the family for execution. Either way, the caregiver is an advocate that is knowledgeable and able to move through the healthcare system.
The feedback from patient’s families is that the care manager was able to take away the stress of caregiving allowing the family to be a family again.
Please contact me if you need more information about what a care manager does, and if hiring one might be the right decision for your family.