Care Coordination: Managing Cost and Length of Stay

You may spend most of your day focusing on utilization management and discharge planning, but care coordination is one of the key roles that hospital case managers and social workers perform. Other roles include utilization management and discharge planning. It is integral to managing cost and length of stay. Nevertheless, it is often overlooked or under-performed. This is sometimes due to workload issues and/or understaffing. Other times it is due to a lack of focus on this area of work.

This program will review the elements that most greatly impact on cost and length of stay. By focusing on care coordination as one of the key strategies for successful reductions of these metrics, you will be better positioned to perform your role as a hospital case manager. Care coordination, as one of the main roles of the RN case manager, is complex and includes many characteristics that encompass the role. Although these issues can be complex, there are tools and techniques to incorporate care coordination into your daily practice. These will be covered as well as those elements that have the greatest negative impact on care coordination. Those that have the greatest positive impact will be discussed in detail. Working with teams to enhance care coordination, as well as rounds and huddles, will be discussed. Participants will walk away with effective strategies for managing their hospital’s length of stay and cost.

Areas Covered in the Webinar:

• Care coordination’s impact on length of stay and cost
• Negative impacts on care coordination
• Positive impacts on care coordination
• Five key elements of care coordination
• Strategies for evaluating your hospital’s own areas of inefficiency
• Effective time-out processes
• Rounds and huddles

Who Will Benefit:

• RN Case Managers
• Social Workers
• Directors of Case Management
• Directors of Social Work
• Physician Advisors
• Directors of Finance
• Director of Nursing