The nurse uses their experience and assessment skills reviewing the patient's current course, past medical history and what family or friend support there is outside the hospital (Case Management, 2009). Case management in the home setting is designed with the same goals in mind as case management in the acute care setting. The role of home care in the success of case management is critical. The implementation of chronic care management and disease management programs have provided a unique opportunity for home care case management to reduce the need for acute care services. This has allowed for healthcare providers and executives to curtail costs and reduce lengths of stay (Cesta, and Tahan, 2002).

The goals of home care case management include:

Optimizing the delivery of all aspects of care

Keeping patients in less costly care settings

Facilitating a proactive approach to patient care delivery and management

Reducing a patients risk and the need for acute care services

Preventing deterioration in patients conditions

Home care case management targets patients with chronic illnesses and seriously complex medical and psychosocial conditions and those who need immediate post acute care (Cesta, and Tahan, 2002). These are the people that can benefit from more personal care because of the nature of their conditions.

Case managers in the home care setting are responsible for coordinating and integrating care for patients with complex therapeutic modalities and treatment plans, such as the following: non-healing wounds and wound care management, infusion therapy, speech therapy, physical and occupational therapy, mechanical ventilation and oxygen therapy, Polypharmacy, tube feedings, psychosocial counseling along with pain management and palliative care (Cesta, and Tahan, 2002).

Overall the goal of case management is to provide the best possible services and outcomes to the patients that are involved. Whether this is done in the acute care setting or in the home care setting the goals are basically the same. The implementation strategies are a bit different depending on the setting. In the acute care setting, the strategy is to get the patient...

This helps to keep costs down and eliminate case load for those acute care practitioners. If the patient is still in need of care then they can be transferred to a home care setting. This is often a more long-term setting that requires not only traditional nursing practices but other non-traditional ones as well.
Case management is a very useful practice that helps the entire health care profession as a whole, but is especially helpful to those patients that benefit from it. These people are getting that extra care that they so greatly need in both the acute care setting and the home care setting. The ultimate goal of both settings is to provide the best possible patient care possible and case management facilitates this happening.