Develop a 3 page preliminary care coordination plan for a selected health care problem. Include physical, psychosocial, and cultural considerations for this health care problem. Identify and list available community resources for a safe and effective continuum of care.
Introduction
The first step in any effective project is planning. This assessment provides an opportunity for you to strengthen your understanding of how to plan and negotiate the coordination of care for a particular health care problem. Include physical, psychosocial, and cultural considerations for this health care problem. Identify and list available community resources for a safe and effective continuum of care.
NOTE: You are required to complete this assessment before Assessment 4.
Preparation
As you begin to prepare this assessment, you are encouraged to complete the Care Coordination Planning activity. Completion of this will provide useful practice, particularly for those of you who do not have care coordination experience in community settings. The information gained from completing this activity will help you succeed with the assessment. Completing formatives is also a way to demonstrate engagement.
Scenario
Imagine that you are a staff nurse in a community care center. Your facility has always had a dedicated case management staff that coordinated the patient plan of care, but recently, there were budget cuts and the case management staff has been relocated to the inpatient setting. Care coordination is essential to the success of effectively managing patients in the community setting, so you have been asked by your nurse manager to take on the role of care coordination. You are a bit unsure of the process, but you know you will do a good job because, as a nurse, you are familiar with difficult tasks. As you take on this expanded role, you will need to plan effectively in addressing the specific health concerns of community residents.
To prepare for this assessment, you may wish to:
- Review the assessment instructions and scoring guide to ensure that you understand the work you will be asked to complete.
- Allow plenty of time to plan your chosen health care concern.
Instructions
Note: You are required to complete this assessment before Assessment 4.
Develop the Preliminary Care Coordination Plan
Complete the following:
- Select one of the health concerns in the Assessment 01 Supplement: Preliminary Care Coordination Plan [PDF] Download Assessment 01 Supplement: Preliminary Care Coordination Plan [PDF]
resource as the focus of your care coordination plan. In your plan, please include physical, psychosocial, and cultural needs. - Identify available community resources for a safe and effective continuum of care.
Document Format and Length
- Your preliminary plan should be an APA scholarly paper, 3–4 pages in length.
- Remember to use active voice, this means being direct and writing concisely; as opposed to passive voice, which means writing with a tendency to wordiness.
- In your paper include possible community resources that can be used.
- Be sure to review the scoring guide to make sure all criteria are addressed in your paper.
- Study the subtle differences between basic, proficient, and distinguished.
Supporting Evidence
Cite at least two credible sources from peer-reviewed journals or professional industry publications that support your preliminary plan.
Grading Requirements
The requirements, outlined below, correspond to the grading criteria in the Preliminary Care Coordination Plan Scoring Guide, so be sure to address each point. Read the performance-level descriptions for each criterion to see how your work will be assessed.
- Analyze your selected health concern and the associated best practices for health improvement.
- Cite supporting evidence for best practices.
- Consider underlying assumptions and points of uncertainty in your analysis.
- Describe specific goals that should be established to address the health care problem.
- Identify available community resources for a safe and effective continuum of care.
- Organize content so ideas flow logically with smooth transitions; contains few errors in grammar/punctuation, word choice, and spelling.
- Apply APA formatting to in-text citations and references, exhibiting nearly flawless adherence to APA format.
- Write with a specific purpose with your patient in mind.
- Adhere to scholarly and disciplinary writing standards and current APA formatting requirements.
Course Competencies
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and scoring guide criteria:
- Competency 1: Adapt care based on patient-centered and person-focused factors.
- Analyze a health concern and the associated best practices for health improvement.
- Competency 2: Collaborate with patients and family to achieve desired outcomes.
- Describe specific goals that should be established to address a selected health care problem.
- Competency 3: Create a satisfying patient experience.
- Identify available community resources for a safe and effective continuum of care.
- Competency 6: Apply professional, scholarly communication strategies to lead patient-centered care.
- Organize content so ideas flow logically with smooth transitions; contains few errors in grammar/punctuation, word choice, and spelling.
- Apply APA formatting to in-text citations and references, exhibiting nearly flawless adherence to APA format.
Use the resources linked below to help complete this assessment.
Affordable Care: Harnessing the Power of Nurses: Cleveland, Kimberly Ann, JD, MSN, RN, C-MBC; Motter, Tracey, DNP, RN; Smith, Yvonne, PhD APRN-CNS. Online Journal of Issues in Nursing; Silver Spring Vol. 24, Iss. 2, (May 2019): 1-14. DOI:10.3912/OJIN.Vol24No02Man02
The Affordable Care Act 10 Years In: What Nursing Leaders Should Know
Author links open overlay panel
Blake T. McGee PhD, MPH, RN, Susan E. Breslin DNP, RN, FACHE
Received 19 March 2020, Accepted 26 March 2020, Available online 6 May 2020, Version of Record 1 February 2021.
During care coordination, nurses should ensure that they are creating patient-centered goals. A great way to achieve this is by using SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Timely) goals. SMART goals provide direction for patient-centered care coordination.
SMART goals must be effective, meaningful, achievable, and collaborative in nature. Key stakeholders (such as the individual, group, or community; possibly significant others; and you, the nurse) must be taken into account.
Often the best way to patient-centered functional goals is simply to ask the target group, “What are your goals?” Doing this will help you to improve adherence, satisfaction, and outcomes. Consider the following when developing SMART goals:
- Specific: Goals will specify who will be responsible, what is to be achieved, where the activity is located, and why it is important or beneficial.
- Measurable: Goals must specify criteria for measuring progress against them. This helps you to stay on track, reach milestones, and motivate the stakeholders.
- Attainable: Setting attainable goals serves to motivate the individual or group.
- Relevant: Key stakeholders must see how a specific goal is relevant to them.
- Timely: To be most effective, goals must be structured around a specific time frame to motivate individuals to begin working on their goals.
After developing a mutually agreed-upon goal, SMART objectives are developed to help guide activities. Objectives help to determine whether the goals have been achieved and if revisions need to be made for future educational sessions.
SMART objectives must be:
- Specific: Objectives need to be concrete, detailed, and well-defined so that you know what exactly is going to occur and what to expect.
- Measurable: A way to determine how the goal was met or if it needs revision.
- Achievable: The objective must be appropriate and feasible for those involved. Ask: What’s the patient’s learning style? For example, does the patient prefer reading printed materials, viewing audiovisual materials, or watching demonstrations?
- Realistic: It must take into consideration constraints such as resources, personnel, cost, education level, learning style, reading level and comprehension level. What language do they speak? How much does the individual or group like to know? Ask: Can the patient read or comprehend instructions or follow directions? Do they prefer reading printed materials, viewing audiovisual materials, or demonstrations?
- Time-bound: A time frame helps set boundaries around the objective. Ask: How long will it take to obtain the objective? Objectives may be process- or outcome-oriented.
Outcome objectives can be short-term, intermediate, or long-term:
- Short-term objectives can be achieved after implementing certain activities or interventions. Change may be in cognitive (knowledge), psychomotor (demonstration), and values (attitude).
- Intermediate outcome objectives provide a sense of progress toward reaching long-term objectives. This could be behavior and policy change.
- Long-term objectives occur after the program has been implemented. It may take more than a month. These can be changes in mortality, moribundity, and quality of life.
Example of a SMART goal:
- Walk for 30 minutes a day, seven days a week.
Example of a SMART objective:
- By the end of the week, patient will have walked 3.5 hours.
Example of an evaluation of a SMART objective:
- The patient will complete a daily log of miles each week.