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With unprecedented advances in heart failure (HF) treatment and recently updated ACC/AHA/HFSA guidelines, remarkable potential exists to improve HF patient outcomes through effective interventions at critical transition points. Join key experts, including CMSA President-Elect, Jose Alejandro, PhD, RN-BC, MBA, FACHE, FAAN, for an interactive webinar as they highlight core concepts and practical strategies from the Heart Failure Transitions of Care (TOC) Pathway, developed to arm system leaders and the HF care team with essential interventions and tools to ensure safe and effective transitions of care for patients with HF across care settings.

 

Are you ready for 2018? So are we! In addition to our new conference website, we have confirmed all three keynotes for our Chicago event: Dr. Travis Stork, Dr. Allen Hamilton and Dr. Rick Rigsby. And don't forget: each paid registrant receives a FREE one year individual membership with CMSA! Follow the link below to learn more and register. We can't wait to see you there!

 

Earlier this year, we announced a partnership with CCMC to continue advancing professional case managers in their career paths. Under the agreement, CMSA members receive a 20 percent discount when applying for the CCM, as well as upon renewal. Those who hold the CCM certification receive a 20 percent discount for CMSA membership.

If you have questions about how to take advantage of your new member benefit, please contact CMSA Client Services at cmsa@cmsa.org or 501-225-2229.

 

Download CMSA's Standards of Practice for Case Management, 2016 revision, which provides practice guidelines for the case management industry and its diverse stakeholders.The impetus for the 2016 revision of the Standards is the need to emphasize the professional nature of the practice and role of the case manager.

The 2016 Standards contain information about case management including an updated definition, practice settings, roles and responsibilities, case management process, philosophy and guiding principles, as well as the standards and how they are demonstrated.

Download Your Copy

 

Pat Stricker, RN, M Ed SVP, Clinical Services TCS Healthcare Technologies Being a nurse, educator, and content developer for years, the news of the 2017 update to the Blood Pressure (BP) Guidelines made me immediately think about the number of revisions that will need to be made to written documents, audio/video media, and computerized programs that contain hypertension (HTN) information. Examples of these include patient education materials, standard patient letters that reflect HTN information, training materials, reports and reporting parameters, predictive analytic programs, related clinical guidelines, clinical content, care plans, treatment protocols, triage guidelines, algorithms, websites, BP and hypertension apps, etc. I know this type of change seems routine to most people, but when you are responsible for making these revisions it can be a large, time-consuming task. If you are not responsible, you still may want to get more information about the changes, so you can feel confident when explaining them to patients. So I thought I would focus this article on finding additional information that you can use to increase your own knowledge and to revise your HTN materials. However, let’s take a look at the changes that were made first.

 

A startling 83.6 percent of patients with a known history of atrial fibrillation who were hospitalized with acute ischemic stroke were not receiving therapeutic guideline-recommended anticoagulation therapy before their stroke in the recent Patient-Centered Research into Outcomes Stroke Patients Prefer and Effectiveness Research (PROSPER) studies supported by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI); https://www.pcori.org/). In the study of 94,474 patients with atrial fibrillation who were admitted for acute ischemic stroke in 1,622 hospitals across the U.S. participating in the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Program from 2012 to 2015, patients not receiving adequate antithrombotic medication were more likely to experience more severe stroke and had a higher risk for in-hospital mortality. In a companion study of 12,552 warfarin-naïve patients with persistent or paroxysmal atrial fibrillation or flutter admitted for ischemic stroke, patients who were discharged with warfarin after a stroke had a significantly lower rate of major adverse cardiovascular events, all-cause mortality, and readmission for ischemic stroke at 2 years. In addition, patients treated with warfarin had an average of 79 more days of ‘home time’ in the 2 years following their stroke.

 

by Jeff Frater Case managers have long been committed to the idea of patient-centric care planning, recognizing the patient as a three-dimensional person with specific needs and wants, strengths and limitations. While provider and payer organizations can sometimes be viewed by patients as faceless monoliths, the one-on-one relationships between care managers and patients have offered a personalized and individualized care relationship to help offset this reality. It is perhaps for this reason that some care managers may view the idea of standardizing care plans warily, at best. After all, the patients referred to care management are necessarily complex, often with a variety of comorbidities across medical and behavioral health. Treating them with a one-size-fits-all approach would be disastrous. I would offer that the opposite (i.e., care plans and care management approaches that are as numerous as the patients themselves) do not serve our patients nor our profession well. Care managers should embrace evidence-based care plans as a blueprint for treating complex patients. This blueprint will be shaped by a variety of factors, including comorbidities, demographic and socioeconomic factors, as well as the patient’s ability and willingness to engage in his or her own care.

 

2018 Medicare Annual Payment Rules Finalized for Outpatient Hospital Departments, Ambulatory Surgical Centers, and Home Health settings On November 1, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) finalized two Medicare payment rules moving the agency in a new direction by putting patients first and ensuring that payments support access to high quality, affordable care. Among other things, the Hospital Outpatient payment rule will lower out-of-pocket drug costs for people with Medicare and empower patients with more choices. Both rules finalized increase access to care. Importantly, the Hospital Outpatient rule takes steps to preserve access in rural communities. Source: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

 

CMSA Today™—the official magazine of the Case Management Society of America—is the magazine for case managers. We are committed to providing case management knowledge, perspectives and news to case managers in all sectors of the profession. To facilitate that mission, we accept and consider:

• Original articles written by case managers of all healthcare backgrounds;
• Expertly prepared articles from professional writers—whether medical writers or experienced generalists—on case management topics;
  
• Feature articles, column material, and news about case management trends and issues, as well as about CMSA chapters and their activities;
  
• and personal, member-generated items considered nontraditional for a professional-association publication as poems, remembrances and similar sorts of content.
  

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