Nursing case management is a dynamic and systematic collaborative approach to provide and coordinate health care services to a defined population. The framework  includes five components: assessment, planning, implementation, evaluation, and interaction.
Nurse case managers actively participate with their clients to identify and facilitate options and services for meeting individuals' health needs, with the goal of decreasing fragmentation and duplication of care, and enhancing quality, cost-effective clinical outcomes
Medical care plans are outlines or summaries or the types of medical care and treatments that patients should receive. Case management nurses help create these plans with a number of things in mind. First and foremost, a care plan is based on the type of injury or illness that a person is suffering from. Medical professionals creating care plans will also take a patient s medical history, including allergies and risk factors for other illnesses, into consideration when creating care plans. Other aspects that may help determine a patient s course of treatment include their health insurance plan, prognosis, and needs and wants of both the patient and their loved ones.
Generally, case management nurses are more prominent in specialties that require patients to receive long-term care, such as those with chronic illnesses or long-term care needs
First, a case management nurse will usually assess a patient and consult with other medical professionals such as attending physicians. From there, the medical team can devise a care plan based partly on the patient s medical problems and history, and partly on the wants and needs of the patient and his loved ones.
Since a one-size-fits-all approach to treating medical approach is not feasible, each individual patient s care plan will be different, even if just slightly. Because of this, a case management nurse must take a patient s medical history into consideration when creating an effective and safe care plan. For example, some patients are allergic to or may have had a bad reaction to some substances, and therefore cannot be treated with certain medications. The wants and needs of patients will vary greatly as well. Some patients, for instance, may have other obligations that make scheduling treatments and doctor visits somewhat difficult, while others may have limited means of transportation or mobility issues. Planning a medical treatment plan around the wants and needs of the patients greatly increases the effectiveness of the plans.
It is also often up to the case management nurse to inform and support each patient throughout the course of their treatment. They might keep them abreast of different treatment options, for example, or inform them of various resources that they might employ during their medical care. This type of information and support enables patients to be more proactive about their medical decisions.
Medical care plans are periodically reevaluated by case management nurses and other members of the medical teams. Case management nurses must stay on top of any changes in a patient s condition or lifestyle that will affect treatment. If changes are made in a patient s condition or lifestyle, the case management nurse will often need to update the case management plan to reflect and accommodate these changes.