The health care manager
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The health care manager · Apr 2006
Can case management interventions reduce the number of emergency department visits by frequent users?
This study examined the impact of nurse case management interventions on the number of visits of frequent users of a level 1, urban Emergency Department that sees over 70,000 patient visits per year. Frequent users, defined as those having over 3 visits in a month, were tracked before and after implementation of nurse case management interventions designed to reduce their visit rate. ⋯ This is a medically vulnerable patient group whose visits add to the contemporary problem of Emergency Department overcrowding. The ability of case management interventions to reduce the volume of visits and associated impact on reducing Emergency Department overcrowding was not proven.
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The health care manager · Apr 2006
Satisfaction for health care employees: a quest for the Holy Grail?
This article proposes that, across industries, too much has been made of the importance of job satisfaction and its impact on organizational effectiveness. In addition, so much attention has been directed toward satisfaction that many health care employees, particularly nurses, now expect job satisfaction from their employers as an entitlement. In nursing, feelings about job satisfaction may, in fact, be exacerbated by the idealism which leads the young person entering the field to expect to be in a "helping profession" where workers almost automatically encounter the satisfaction that comes from giving the help which the patient desperately needs. ⋯ This situation is not unique to nurses. Many health care professionals face equally dissatisfying aspects of their jobs. Our focus is primarily on reducing job dissatisfaction, rather than improving job satisfaction, through practical solutions for those charged with attracting and retaining health care employees during tight labor markets.