Core competencies for a registered nurse (RN) are different than those for an RN care manager, says Mary M. Morin, RN, NEA-BC, RN-BC, vice president, nurse executive with Sentara Medical Group. When Sentara officially converted to a hybrid embedded case management model, RN care managers' job descriptions had to be rewritten; to be successful in this new model, they didn't necessarily have to have care management experience; instead, having a strong clinical background and experience doing patient assessments were more important.
To get RN care management away from the embedded telephonic model, we had to rewrite the job descriptions, and if you’re going to rewrite job descriptions, have a new position. This is different work.
We found out people will hear it, but until they go through it, until they feel it, they’re all for it until it actually happens. If I were to do this again, I would make everybody reapply for their job because this requires a certain type of individual. These people need to be able to engage patients for a long-term relationship. They have to know how to work with hospital-based caregivers, home health, life care and not just within our own healthcare system.
We established core competencies. Core competencies for an RN care manager are different than those for an RN. We have an ambulatory-based RN. We were looking for people that didn’t necessarily have previous care management experience, but who had experience doing patient assessments. They also had to have a strong clinical background.
Following are 10 more core competencies for the hybrid embedded RN care manager:
- Job descriptions: BSN requirement
- Maintain patient lists by populations
- Accept assignments
- Meet expectations
- Send patient letter from primary care physician (PCP)
- Engage patients
- Send contact letter, brochure
- Standardize work flow
- Use SMG, Optima (Health Plan), and clinically integrated network (CIN) electronic medical record (EMR)
- Hold meetings with home health and inpatient care coordinators
- Complete education/training
- Achieve specialty certification
Mary M. Morin, RN, NEA-BC, RN-BC, is a nurse executive with Sentara Medical Group, where she is responsible and accountable for non-physician clinical practice within the Sentara Medical Group (160 clinics/practices) to ensure integration and alignment with Sentara Healthcare, regulatory compliance, standardization of nursing practice/care, and patient safety.
Source: Hybrid Embedded Case Management: New Model for Cross-Continuum Care Coordination
