Advocacy In Case Management Essay

Advocacy within the Case Management

Jayna Stiverne

Southeastern University

Case management community upholds valuable qualities, knowledge and skills. Case managers are basically the first step for an individual seeking change or recovery, as we are responsible for mapping out the plan for the next steps towards the assisted transformation or improved quality of life. According to Case Management Society of America the following is the established philosophy of case management:

The underlying premise of case management is based in the fact that when an individual reaches the optimum level of wellness and functional capability, everyone benefits: the individuals being served, their support systems, the health care delivery systems

and the various reimbursement sources.

(Case Management Society of America, n.d.)

Our goal as case managers is to have the individual reach the optimal level existing with advocacy, communication, education, identification of service resources and service facilitation. The essential work of case managers is to advocate for clients/support systems. Case managers understand the significance of accomplishing quality results for their clients and commit to the suitable utilize of resources and empowerment of clients in a way that's supportive and objective. As evident case managers wear different hats such as being an advocate which has been mentioned as part of the services provided.

Playing an advocate can be challenging with untying ethical and legal issues for effective case management. Therefore, it is important to “be ultra-sensitive to the ethical dilemmas you might face, and you must know where to go for resources” (Case Management Body of Knowledge, n.d.). Almost everything a case manager performs in

relation to his or her client is a form of advocacy. When planning with clients, advocacy for their voices and opinions to be heard is taking place (Summers, 2011). Matter of fact, advocacy is defined as the act of recommending, pleading the cause of another, to speak or write in favor of (CMSA Standards of Practice, 2010, p. 24). Advocacy basically implies actively supporting a cause and attempting to get others to support it as well. It too is speaking up, effecting change, drawing consideration to a critical issue or interest, or directing those who are to create certain choices toward an appropriate and vital action. Advocacy has been examined and characterized in detail within the public and social policy literature. In case management, it has not been reviewed or portrayed as comprehensively even nowadays despite its significance. The restricted, but varied, definitions of advocacy communicated within the case management literature share certain core characteristics. Advocacy is noted to be comparative to friendship in that it is best when based on open communication, transparency, association, genuineness, respect, honesty, and believe; comparative to counseling since it is most successful when applying listening, attending, supporting, empowering, engaging, and responding abilities; and like teaching when it includes persistence, direction, and sharing of information by a more knowledgeable individual. (Tahan, 2016).
The concept of advocacy isn't new to health care service delivery and practices. It is an imperative and effective viewpoint of case management. It also is specifically inserted within the part case managers play within the arrangement of care to clients and their support systems. It is characteristic in each action they perform, from diagnosis of clients' issues to recovery or death, whereas providing health and human services, and amid each experience with a client. Advocacy is at the heart of the case manager's part and the relationship with the client and client's support system. However, many case managers are unaware of the importance of client advocacy and those who are aware are not equipped with sufficient knowledge, skills or lack training. According to Tahan it is important to recognize that effective case managers are those who start their advocacy role from the first time they encounter their client/support system. Moving on, there are many perspectives with advocacy integrated with case management, however a favored contemporary perspective which has been elaborated by Daniels (2009) depicts advocacy for the hospital-based case manager as actions that follow to the ethical and professional code of conduct and the guidelines of case management practice. She too clarifies that for case managers to support the best interest of their clients, they must be proactive advocates and the "voice of the client" in care management choices.
In conclusion, any case of the advocacy sort, case managers as advocates can impact the wellbeing conditions of clients at various levels.

For illustration, working with client enduring from severe hypertension and internally inside an organization or care setting, the case manager better this client's wellbeing condition. Through an engaging approach to lifestyle behavior change and respect of this client's right to choice and self-determination, the case manager is able to attain wanted results (i.e., way better health, reduction of avoidable or unnecessary access to emergency rooms, and thus decrease in cost). When this case manager proceeds to care and advocate for clients with comparable conditions and applying same strategies, this case manager can move from supporting at the person and micro level to contributing to the health of a client population (i.e., clients with hypertension) and so engaging in advocacy at the community, system, and

external.

References
Case Management Body of Knowledge. (n.d.). The Case Manager’s Ethical Decision Making. Retrieved from Case Management Body of Knowledge: https://www.cmbodyofknowledge.com/content/case-manager%E2%80%99s-ethical-decision-making
Case Management Society of America. (n.d.). What Is A Case Manager? Retrieved from Case Management Society of America: http://www.cmsa.org/who-we-are/what-is-a-case-manager/
Summers, N. (2011). Advocacy. In N. Summers, Fundamentals of Case Management Practice (pp. 53-55). Cengage Learning.
Tahan, H. M. (2016). Essentials of Advocacy in Case. Professional Case Management, 163-179.
Daniels S. (2009). Advocacy and the hospital case manager. Professional Case Management, 14(1), 48-51.