Joann Sciandra: The Role of Case Management Continues to Evolve

Joann Sciandra, RN, BSN, CCM, associate vice president of healthcare management, Geisinger Health System, discusses how the role of case management has evolved with increased attention being paid to social determinants of health and if she thinks the role will continue to evolve in the future.

Is the role of case management evolving with increased attention being paid to social determinants of health?

It’s interesting, because when I hear about social determinants and all the buzz around it now, we’ve had social determinants of health for hundreds of years, it’s really nothing knew. I’d say the great thing is that we are really looking at it now, where before we did little things, but now we’re really focusing on it. So yes, the role of social determinants and case management. As case managers, we’ve always known the effect if I don’t have a place to live, if I don’t belong, if I don’t have food, if I don’t have something to drink, how are we ever going to help patients get to their goals? So, For a case manager, all of this attention to social determinants is just going to help the case manager get our patients to the next level where they need to be?

Is there room for case management to evolve still? Are there ways it can be leveraged that it currently isn’t?

I think we’re just starting. I don’t think everyone knows what a case manager can provide, and the other thing we need to keep in mind is the term case manager is so widely used. We have nurse case managers, we have social work case managers, we have mental health, behavioral health, addiction. There’s all these different people who are called case managers, and each of them have the same goal at the end of the day, but what they’re doing, the work they’re doing is very different, even though many times they collaborate with each other. I do believe there’s a bigger future in case management than we see today. I think that case management needs to prove itself and certain organizations and certain people have not embraced what a case manager can drive. We have to continue to do that.