Anyone who has a chronic illness knows that managing it successfully is a major challenge – something that can be very hard to do alone, over time, without ongoing help. One of the measures of success for the care coordination team is how well we provide that help.

With more than 130 million Americans affected by chronic illnesses, much is at stake. At the personal level, the goal is to design and implement carefully targeted programs that meet the full spectrum of individual patients’ needs, improving their quality of life and enabling them to maintain the highest possible level of self-sufficiency. At the societal level, the goal must be to continually improve the quality and effectiveness of chronic care initiatives in order to make the best possible use of the nation’s health care dollars and to enhance the productivity and creativity of our population.

Today, with the availably of data, health information technology and educational information, organizations and professionals across the care continuum are uniquely positioned to initiate, refine, and sustain innovative programs that encourage patient engagement in their care. As part of an organization’s ongoing quality improvement activities, organizations and professionals now have the ability to gather data that makes it possible to understand the needs of population, to measure progress, to implement tools and resources that can improve quality of life, to ensure care is coordinated, and to communicate with patients with resources tailored to their specific needs.

Program Objectives

1. Gain insight into the innovations encouraging patient engagement for patients with chronic medical conditions.
2. Explain the importance of the case manager and other members of the care coordination team in staying up to date on new technologies that are empowering patients to be active participants in their care
3. Describe the outcomes organizations can realize when they empower active participation in care for patients with chronic medical conditions.