Client Management Continuity

Principals for Client Management Continuity

Background
HomeWise Health (HWH) believes that appointing a Clinical Care Manager to oversee their well-being is central to delivering the highest quality care to its clients.

This document identifies (explores) the policy and process used to manage this oversight. It also identifies the courses of action required when the appointed Care Manager is unavailable.

To ensure continuity of care oversight, each client has a dedicated Clinical Care Manager (CCM) to manage their day-to-day requirements. This CCM is the client's Primary Care Manager (PCM).

To remove any ambiguity about who has responsibility for the client's well-being when the CCM is absent or unavailable, the responsibility is allocated to a designated Secondary Care Manager (SCM).

A corollary of formalising these responsibilities is that Care Managers are no longer required to maintain insight into all HWH clients. Their attention is focused on those they have primary responsibility for, providing a more efficient mechanism for allocating CCMs and facilitating the orderly growth of the HWH client base.

This also supports the CCM when they take planned and unplanned leave without the stress (and feelings of guilt) about who will manage their clients' care, leading to a more balanced work-life and supporting more sustainable growth.

Each HWH client will be assigned a CCM during On-Boarding. The CCM will be the person primarily responsible for managing the client's well-being and representing the interests of the 

Importantly, it unequivocally identifies who is responsible for the highest level of client care within the role's reach and that the "Buck stops there."

The care manager provides holistic oversight, among other factors.

Care Continuity
To ensure the continuity of this oversight, there is a need to manage those situations where the CCM is unavailable. This could be for various reasons, such as the manager is on:

To manage these occasions in the life of a CCM and the business, we triage the CCM responsibilities to another team member (the SCM) based on:

We rely on up-to-date client information on Basecamp for working knowledge of the client's current service requirements and issues of concern.

Planned absences
In the ordinary course of events, the covering CCM (the SCM) is assigned to a client in advance and has a high-level watching brief, knowing that before the CCM planned absence, they would be briefed on the essential/current care concerns.
 
This would include a handover with the CCM on the current issues of concern, the depth of which would be proportionate to the duration of the absence and the client's condition.

Weekend & Weekday Overnights
CCMs on weekends, one of the directors monitors the 1800 number and triages for all CCMs and will make contact in case of emergency or where only they can solve the client care issue.

Weekdays
A Secondary Care Manager (SCM) would be notified (usually by email, phone, or both), and Staff Teams would be notified of the SCM via Basecamp Messageboards.

Annual Leave
If the CCM, the Primary Care Manager (PCM), takes their Annual or other planned leave, their role is assigned to their SCM with their backup reverting to the 1800 number for the weekends.

Unplanned Absences - WIP
Short Duration - Sick & Carers Leave (and other misadventures)
When on the occasion a PCM is sick or away on Carers leave. The SCM will immediately fill the role with their backup, reverting to the 1800 number, typically a shorter duration, and the principals will determine the correct course of action.

Longer Term
When a PCM is sick or on unplanned leave of a longer duration, their PCM role is reassigned to their SCM again, with their backup reverting to the 1800 number for the weekends.

To be added in
Our 1800 717 590 number is a 24/7 escalation contact point for staff and clients to contact the team for any issues that require urgent attention, such as:

CCMs have different availability depending on their work schedule. During a typical week, they can assist each other with urgent client consultations (in person at home or over the phone) depending on who is available and whether they know the client or the client's condition.

In the case of unplanned absences, the directors can reset passwords and access the employee emails and Basecamp profiles to notify staff of unexpected absences.

*This idea is based on the widely recognised notion in client management circles that this role has the twin responsibility of protecting