If you’re an older nurse looking to make a career move, you might want to consider becoming a Care Coordinator. The proliferation of patient-centered medical homes makes this an ideal position for experienced nurses.
Janet Duni, RN, CCM, MPA, and Director of Care Coordination at Vanguard Medical Group in Verona, N.J., notes that nurses have the clinical understanding, the expertise, and bedside nursing skills to do the job. "I think a nurse is the best suited to this type of work," says Duni. "A lot of the care coordination job is about understanding a continuum of care that a patient will go through."
Like many of today’s busy nurses who provide for and prioritize the needs of many patients amidst constant interruptions, care coordinators "have many, many irons in the fire each day and keep all patients in [their] line of site," says Duni.
Duni notes that experienced nurses develop a particular skill set that makes them ideal for the care coordinator role. "That type of stop-and-go [environment], and yet getting it all done, and keeping it all afloat… that particular skill set is what you learn as a nurse," Duni says. "You're always doing 10 things at one time, and I think that's unique to nursing."
Duni describes patients as the center of a wheel, with the care coordinator connecting all the “spokes”--community services, insurance, rehab, and social services--to make the wheel turn. "A care coordinator needs to be able to establish and utilize a network of resources," says Duni.
Training programs are already surfacing as more experienced nurses take on the role. Duni received her training through Horizon Healthcare Innovations, a subsidiary of Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, and Duke University School of Nursing and Rutgers College of Nursing. The program seeks to provide more than 200 New Jersey nurses with a formal “population care coordinator” education. For Duni, the two-phase program began at Duke and ended at Rutgers, where students received hands-on training.
Duni noted that for care coordination to grow as a career alternative, more nurses need to enter the field and payers need to introduce plans to support it. The hope is that a new Medicare rule will pay nurses when they help patients successfully move from hospitals to other settings. Many patients, especially the growing population of seniors, need help in scheduling appointments, managing medication, and monitoring health. Providers and payers benefit too. Duni notes that the acute care facilities they work with show that the readmission rate for Vanguard Medical Group is far lower than for similar practices.
If you’re a nurse with a decade or so of experience behind you, you might consider putting your skills and knowledge to work as a Care Coordinator. For more information, check out Duke University’s Population Care Coordinator Program (PCCP).
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