Models help focus evaluation efforts
Evaluation models provide case managers with a logical framework for their outcomes studies. Models follow prescribed steps, each leading logically to the next, and that logic prevents case managers from becoming disorganized, says Gerri S. Lamb, RN, PhD, of Tucson, AZ, co-author of Case Management: A Guide to Strategic Evaluation, published by Mosby in St. Louis. (For tips on implementing evaluation efforts, see cover story.)
The two models described here are the ones most commonly selected for case management evaluation.
"The traditional evaluation model gives you the big picture. It has excellent credibility and links well with the quality improvement process," notes Lamb.
"The thing I like best about the quality improve ment process is that it’s continuous. I would put a great deal of passion into a traditional evaluation study, and then it would be completed." she says. "I was always left with a letdown. I would think my work was finished. Then, two weeks after my big study was reported, an executive would come up to me and suggest I could never reproduce my results."
The quality improvement process recognizes that a case manager’s work is never finished, says Lamb. "There is always a better process."
However, this model does have some limitations. "You must have significant leadership to support all the resources it takes to follow a quality improvement process."
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