Merry Case Managemas!

The Holiday Season clearly brings us all around to considering issues related to quality of life, so I figured this is as good a time as any to begin touching on this huge topic.  Quality of life should clearly be one of the driving factors in all decisions related to discharge planning, and is one of the few factors that can out weigh medical treatment in the hospital setting.

Let’s think about what is really important during the Holiday Season.  To me the most important thing during this time is time with my family and friends.  I would wager this would also be a popular view among our patients.  Which brings us to the dilemma at hand.  Is it better for the patient to impose continued in-patient care upon them, or to allow them the time at home with family and continue the care after the holidays?

I would argue that the job of the Case Manager is to allow for continued care to happen while allowing the patient to go home with their family.  To arrange a strong out patient follow-up plan and to explain in an unmistakable way the importance of this follow-up to the patient.  Also, to impart the needed understanding of the responsibility the patient and family have to ensure this follow-up happens, since we are allowing them to enjoy the higher quality of life they will have at home.

I think it is important to impart the idea that “we are allowing” the patients and their families to enjoy this time together.  Imposing this idea into their thought process instills that the time with family is a reward of compliance with their treatment plan.  This will create a higher rate of compliance and build a working relationship between the patients and the medical professionals. 

On the Case Manager’s side of this it is important to consider that time with family, friends, and all quality of life issues are important parts of a patient’s treatment plan.  For most patients it is the most important part of their plan.  We are the mediators between the patients and the Doctors that can build a treatment plan for the patient that allows them a higher quality of life.  We can get patients home to their families and allow Doctors the ability to discharge them and get home to their families.

In the end it comes down to the idea that medicine is worthless without a meaningful quality of life to go along with it.  Case Managers are the people that can marry these two things.  So, in turn, I would like to wish you all a Merry Case Managemas!