**Presented at the 2022 CMSA Annual Conference**
*** RN, CCM Ethics and SW credits ***
Healthcare systems have been battling the COVID-19 pandemic for almost two years and have made tremendous gains in testing, treatment, and protective measures such as vaccines, masks, and physical (social) distancing. In early November (2021), the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed 249,743,428 COVID-19 cases and 45,047,652 deaths; the United States alone recorded 752,196 deaths. While this pandemic lingered, the science related to COVID-19 care management has continued to evolve. Healthcare systems constantly evaluate their processes for delivering safe, efficient, quality, coordinated, and cost-effective care, and case managers must do the same. Now is the time for us to re-examine the tools and mechanisms used to engage with our COVID-19 patients. Now is the time to creatively use technology to meet our patients’ needs and address the seclusion they may feel while hospitalized. This presentation is a case study from my personal COVID-19 experience. This presentation covers care received from two health systems that begin with a COVID-19 diagnosis in the Emergency Department. It continues through a hospitalization with an ICU admission, then a discharge from the hospital to a “hospital at home” patient monitoring program. This presentation will make you laugh and possibly shed a few tears. This case study will highlight aspects of clinical care and case management that were done very well and generate discussion about opportunities for improvement in areas where we fell a little short. Attendees will be able to download and review the case study to prepare for classroom discussion and participation.
OBJECTIVES:
- Evaluate the effectiveness of care coordination discussed across two health systems and the ethics of how they impact quality of care, cost and patient satisfaction.
- Describe the “Hospital at Home” patient monitoring program’s technology and explain how similar technology can support the patient-case manager relationship during COVID-19 isolation.
- Identify several challenges a case manager may encounter while providing case management services to patients with COVID-19 and develop a case management action plan that address these opportunities for improvement.