Hospital Case Management – September 1, 2017
September 1, 2017
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Your New Best Friend May Be a Community Health Worker
Community health workers, lay people who live in the community they serve and understand the challenges of the people who live there, can teach at-risk patients how to navigate the healthcare system, help them obtain community services, and support them in overcoming obstacles to care.
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Who Are Community Health Workers?
If your hospital doesn’t have its own community-based workers to support at-risk patients, you should research the providers in the community and what services they can offer.
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Successful CHW Programs Are Complex and Require Meticulous Planning
Successful community health worker programs don’t just happen by magic: Providers have to plan the initiative carefully and be clear about the roles and responsibilities.
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No Degree? No Problem: CHWs Need the Ability to Connect With People
When it comes to being a successful community health worker, academic background takes a backseat to life experiences and characteristics like compassion, reliability, and the ability to connect with people, experts say.
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CHWs Embedded in the Hospital and Clinic Support Patients in the Community
After a randomized trial showed that patients receiving interventions from a community health worker had improved outcomes, Penn Medicine expanded the program and now 30 community health workers are embedded on teams in hospitals and primary care clinics.
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Dual Approach Helps At-risk Patients Overcome Obstacles to Receiving Care
To bridge the gap between at-risk patients and the providers treating them, New York-Presbyterian Hospital has developed two different models in which trained lay members of the community work with at-risk patients to help them navigate the healthcare system and manage their health.
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Patient Navigators Help Patients Connect to Primary Care, Avoid ED Visits
Frequent ED visitors decreased their visits by 50% at New York-Presbyterian health system hospitals after community health workers, called patient navigators, began connecting at-risk patients to primary care providers and educating them on how to seek treatment at an appropriate level of care.
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Admission and Discharge Timeouts in Case Management Practice
With the advent of healthcare reform, it has become clear that case management often is the driver of transitions in care. This month will discuss two important tools that case managers can use to improve their patients’ transitions in care — the admission and discharge time-out processes.