Agency
North Alabama Medical Center is a facility in Florence, Alabama. It is a large facility with more than 200 physicians who practice across the 42 specialties in medicine. It offers the surrounding community quality general and specialized care. The facility also gives back to the community through social work. It ensures that all the individuals in the community set up can receive adequate care. Social workers in the facility utilize the case management program to assess their patients and develop interventions tailored to ensure their needs are met or referred to the appropriate channels.
This document is an outline of the evaluation plan of the case management program in the management. The evaluation's primary focus will be to determine how effective the social worker's case management plan is. This plan will explore the case management plan's challenges and protocols and outline its evaluation process. A case management program is an essential topic because it guides the provision of quality services to the social worker's clients. In every way, it ensures that the client is in a position to achieve optimum health.
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Program Description
The case management program for social workers guides the fundamental processes in managing the uninsured or those under drug and substance rehabilitation care. This program begins with the establishment of a relationship with a client. The social worker then assesses the needs of the client. In this step, the social worker should be careful to identify the ideal needs of this client (Barber et al., 2015). According to the needs established, the social worker intervenes to ensure that they are met by referral to the relevant resources.
Purpose of Evaluation
Healthcare is a fundamental need for all individuals. This need should therefore be accessible by all regardless of their socioeconomic capabilities. The establishment of social workers' case management strategies enabled the achievement of equal medical access. In a standard societal setting, there exist individuals with different economic and financial capabilities. Some individuals can afford quality medical services, some qualify for and can afford medical insurance covers, but some cannot achieve either. Case management allows the social worker to assess the patient's strengths and their social and financial needs, and the resources available for the institution's client (Steketee et al., 2017). The case management program's objective is to allow the worker to anticipate client’s needs and adequately address them to optimize their functionality (Barber et al., 2015). This evaluation plan focuses on assessing the case management plan's effectiveness to clients in a hospital setting. Understanding the effectiveness of case management will improve the process and provide more individualized and focused assistance.
In the management of cases of uninsured clients at hospitals, social workers utilize several skills. The social worker's role is to first perform psychological assessments and interventions in bereavement or crisis interventions. They also ensure that all the discharged patients' needs are adequately met and identify the resources available for them at the hospital or the community level. They also ensure that these patients smoothly transit from the facility setting to the community. The social worker will also ensure the patient can receive any medical services, prescribed medication, or medical equipment. They also organize and manage the referral of those unable to manage financial needs for care to the relevant resources (Steketee et al., 2017).
Evaluation Components and Questions
This program evaluation seeks to establish the case management program's effects on the clients in the hospital setting. Therefore, this evaluation aims to identify the evaluation outcomes and establish their contribution to the overall patient experience. The target population for the need’s assessment will be uninsured clients visiting health facilities and the social workers providing services. Knowing both parties' views will enable one to have a holistic picture of the project's outcomes.
In this project evaluation, the outcome evaluation model. Outcome evaluation involves evaluating both the immediate and distant project results (Fridrich et al., 2015). From the results, it is easier to assess the achievement of the primary goals of the program. The model also assesses the unintended outcomes of the program. In this case, there will be an assessment of the case management program to determine whether uninsured individuals from poor backgrounds can receive adequate medical care and medications. The questions guide the outcome evaluation process and formulate research question areas discussed in the subsequent paragraphs.
Are the goals desired of the program met? This outcome question requires an exclusive focus on desired objectives of the program. In this question, both the client's and social workers expected achievements are examined concerning the actual results. This section focuses mainly on the beneficial outcomes that were expected forefront. This evaluation question is the most important because it allows the program to prove whether or not it achieved the goals primarily set for it.
What unintended results came with the implementation of the program? This question presents a wider scope of examining the program. It assesses the consequences of the research that were not primarily expected. This question allows one to have a holistic assessment of the program's consequences and determine any negative ones.
Is there a difference in the outcome’s experiences by several hospitals from the case management model? Different facilities have different delivery strategies for delivering the case management program. These slight differences can influence the results of the evaluation process. Comparing and discussing the outcomes of other companies compared to this can help identify similarities and differences.
The Design Question
To adequately evaluate a process, it is important to have a guiding question. Research questions guide the activities and actions performed in the research (Ratan et al., 2019). This study focuses on determining the effectiveness of the case management programs in clients in hospital settings. The goal of the case management programs is to optimize patient health by ensuring a holistic care approach is performed. The detailed approach to performing the care involves several processes. The social worker has first to establish a relationship with the client and perform ana thorough assessment to determine the client's needs and manage them. After receiving referrals to a community or facility resources, the client social worker interaction is terminated. The outcomes of this rigorous process are the central focus of this evaluation.
In determining case management's contribution in achieving optimized client health, the research question will be: Is the case management program effective for patient needs in the hospital setting? This question gives directionality to the evaluation plan. From reading this, an individual will understand the purpose and aim of the evaluation plan. It also covers the main primary questions of outcome evaluation.
Literature Review
Case management is facing several challenges that may eventually culminate in poor outcomes in the long run. To fully understand the nature of this evaluation, it is essential to review the barriers case management is currently facing. Firstly, the activities involved in case management are diverse and complex (Joo & Huber, 2017). Several social workers have reported that the process is time-consuming and limits the number of clients they can assist in the process. In their roles, the social workers act as a connection between the service providers and agencies and their clients, stretching them over a wide scope of activities (Yeshiva University, 2019). The client and social worker relationship is the backbone of the case management process. Researchers have, however, established that this process is quite difficult to achieve and a major hindrance to the case management process (Joo & Huber, 2017). The lack of mutual relations in this can result from attitudes towards the process and limit the provision of quality management. The use introduction of the use of technology for communication has risen over the years. This use may limit the quality of assessments done by the social workers and eventually the conclusions made on the patients. (Reamer, 2014). Inadequate knowledge on the use of technology and the possible process involved in the case management by the social workers also hinders the achievement of the desired goals (Joo & Huber, 2017).
A literature review study reported that some research work on the case management program's effectiveness reported no change in the patients’ visit to the emergency department. These researches also reported a minimal reduction in the patient's psychological state of mind. (Hudon et al., 2016) These findings may have been a result of the challenges facing the implementation of the case management program. Social work is a challenging process as it involves ensuring that the individuals who most need a care service cannot afford it achieve it. It also ensures that those who receive benefits from the available resources utilize them to maintain optimum health. Some of the hospitals' users cannot afford care because they are economically disadvantaged; case management allows the social workers to allocate or refer these individuals to the appropriate resources (Hudon et al., 2016). This program helps individuals achieve better health. Therefore, case management is reported to be meeting some of the desired goals.
Evaluation Design Selected
The evaluation will be using a non-experimental research design. This research design does not utilize comparison or a control group, unlike experimental research design. The design will involve the collection of retrospective data which will then be utilized to establish change. This form of design allows the researcher to compare two sets of data on the same population but taken at different times (Wong & Steiner, 2018). In the design, the researcher does not manipulate the research setting's environment, therefore ensuring that the results are a true reflection of the ideal environment. Comparing the clients' data taken over a long time allows the researcher to evaluate the evolution of the facility's case management process and the client’s health and lifestyle. This design provides a wider scope of focus and data collection options, assessed in a limited time frame.
Other research designs were not well suited for this project evaluation program. The study seeks to address the outcomes of a program and would have benefited greatly from an experimental approach. However, an experimental approach would give a less ideal result because the individuals would have been aware of the monitoring process and modify their behavior to fit the desired results. Here, the researcher also can modify the environment of the research. In addition to that, the process would demand more resources and take a long time to complete. Having a control group in this study would have also led to the denial of the individuals the privileges of receiving quality services. It is unethical to deny individuals the right to healthcare to assess the outcomes of that very care process. The double effect principle would not be applicable in allowing this because they are alternative options of receiving the data on these outcomes.
Limitations of the Design
Despite being better suited for this, the non-experimental study design has some limitations. To start with, the data that will be used to determine the influence will be majorly hypothetical. This is because the availability of baseline data before the initiation of the process is not guaranteed (Reio, 2016). In the context of this evaluation, the non-experimental research will only be able to assess previously documented data.
Data Collection Schedule
The data to be utilized in this process will be collected from hospital setups. The data will majorly comprise the information of the progress in case management protocols. The sources of this data will be the hospital's database on the patients who have benefitted from the case management program. It will include their specific benefits, their response to the case management process, and their hospital visit frequency. The data will also include the social worker's specific activities to achieve the case management goals. Therefore, this data will comprehensively evaluate the patient and social worker's interaction and outline the client's benefits from each.
Sampling
The samples used in this research will be mainly data documented in the facility. This study will mainly involve referral data on the uninsured patients and their management process. However, the process will still involve the facility's social workers and the patients whose data will be picked. This study will use a randomized sampling method to ensure that the data collected will be random and reflect an ideal representation of the larger patient data. The study will assess the social workers' views on the progress of the case management program and its impact on their clients' lives and health status. The patients chosen will be followed up to assess their health status in the community and compare it to that before the case management program.
Data Analysis Plan
This study will use the t-test for data analysis. This statistical method will allow the determination and comparison of the specific outcomes of the study. This method is significant in determining the specific relations of the study outcomes and determining whether they are positive or not compared to the initial data on the same. The process of comparing the individual’s health and lifestyle before the program and after will clearly outline any positive and negative outcomes.
Reporting and Utilization of Results
The data from this evaluation will be beneficial in determining the effectiveness of case management. Following the research and evaluation, the data will be documented, analyzed ad discussed. A report will then be written and shared with the relevant authorities. The report was written will be an in-depth description of the process involved in the sampling, data collection, analysis, and discussion. The results from this evaluation will enable one to understand the role of case management in client care. The results will be utilized to review the case management process to determine possible modifications for optimum care.
References
Barber, R. D., Coulourides Kogan, A., Riffenburgh, A., & Enguidanos, S. (2015). A Role for Social Workers in Improving Care Setting Transitions: A Case Study. Social Work in Health Care , 54 (3), 177–192. https://doi.org/10.1080/00981389.2015.1005273
Fridrich, A., Jenny, G. J., & Bauer, G. F. (2015). The Context, Process, and Outcome Evaluation Model for Organisational Health Interventions. BioMed Research International , 2015 . https://doi.org/10.1155/2015/414832
Hudon, C., Chouinard, M.-C., Lambert, M., Dufour, I., & Krieg, C. (2016). Effectiveness of case management interventions for frequent users of healthcare services: a scoping review. BMJ Open , 6 (9), e012353. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-012353
Joo, J. Y., & Huber, D. L. (2017). Barriers in Case Managers’ Roles: A Qualitative Systematic Review. Western Journal of Nursing Research , 40 (10), 1522–1542. https://doi.org/10.1177/0193945917728689
Ratan, S., Anand, T., & Ratan, J. (2019). Formulation of research question – Stepwise approach. Journal of Indian Association of Pediatric Surgeons , 24 (1), 15. https://doi.org/10.4103/jiaps.jiaps_76_18
Reamer, F. G. (2014). Clinical Social Work in a Digital Environment: Ethical and Risk-Management Challenges. Clinical Social Work Journal , 43 (2), 120–132. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10615-014-0495-0
Reio, T. G. (2016). Non-experimental research: strengths, weaknesses and issues of precision. European Journal of Training and Development , 40 (8/9), 676–690. https://doi.org/10.1108/ejtd-07-2015-0058
Steketee, G., Ross, A. M., & Wachman, M. K. (2017). Health Outcomes and Costs of Social Work Services: A Systematic Review. American Journal of Public Health , 107 (Suppl 3), S256–S266. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2017.304004
Wong, V. C., & Steiner, P. M. (2018). Designs of Empirical Evaluations of Non-experimental Methods in Field Settings. Evaluation Review , 42 (2), 176–213. https://doi.org/10.1177/0193841x18778918
Yeshiva University. (2019, December 24). The Challenges of Social Work . Yeshiva. https://online.yu.edu/wurzweiler/blog/the-challenges-of-social-work
