Publications by authors named "Karen Zander"

Purpose: Population health is finally catching up with itself. Before it was known as disease management, it began at New England Medical Center in Boston, MA (now Tufts Medical Center), more than 30 years ago.

Implications For Case Management Practice: Take-away ideas: (1) population health management is about segmenting and targeting specific patient populations for interventions that are evidence based; (2) there are currently many examples of population health management; (3) population health management will not work without social workers and nurse navigators/care coordinators working side by side.

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Purpose: In an attempt to avoid future revisionist history, the author offers a 30-year retrospective (1986-2016) on the evolution of strategies to reduce length of stay (LOS). She and her colleagues have been involved from the onset by developing tools such as critical paths, roles such as clinical case management, and operational systems for managing measureable outcome-driven care from the bedside to the boardroom.

Primary Practice Setting: Acute care hospitals.

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What comes to mind when I hear the name Karen Zander: case manager pioneer, brilliant and compassionate nurse leader, articulate teacher, mentor, and friend. Karen has a unique perspective on health care today as a consumer and provider. While she manages through physical limitations, it has never diminished her passion, commitment or can-do spirit.

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Purpose: The purpose is to encourage hospital administrations to address readmissions immediately and to restructure and significantly enhance case management services once and for all so that they can provide a "wraparound" service for the full clinical course from admission to transition for all patients and families. If 10 basic interventions cannot be provided because of staffing limitations or processes, case management will continue to operate in a crisis mode and hospitals will suffer potentially large financial, quality, and satisfaction losses. If further customization cannot be provided to patients and their families, hospitals will be at risk to fail both their margin and their mission.

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An ongoing dilemma in acute care case management is whether to assign case managers to a unit or MD/Service-based assignment. There are strong logical arguments to be made on both sides of the decision. There are also strong political reasons why organizations opt for one or the other.

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Case management, the basic process of matching key resources to individual's needs, often carried out across time and place, has been a relatively low-profile function (under various levels) within society, business, and health care for many years. Nurses have been involved in case management since its beginnings in social service and public health. However, nurses only became prominent as case managers during the last half of the 20th century because of the need to establish medical necessity for health care payments and, eventually, the need to provide discharge planning.

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