2024 marks 20 years since I left the safety of my role as Director of Case Management, Risk Management, and Quality Management to embark on a wild entrepreneurial vision. It’s hard to imagine how much time has passed, but even harder to believe the space that I created. Amazing what comes from unique vision, passion, and commitment to enhance healthcare quality for all stakeholders: patients, providers, and practitioners included.
Where it Started
Truth be told, I had NO idea what my career would look like in 2004, but I knew my passion. I had worked in hospitals for 20 years, first as a medical social worker, then a case manager, and case management leader. Health disparities were a daily reality for the populations I worked with, as was ensuring equitable access for all persons who needed care.
I was trained by quality mavins to heed the Triple Aim; after all, why shouldn’t all persons receive quality-driven, population-specific, and patient-centric care delivered at the right time, right place, and for the right cost. In turn, the workforce needed education, specialized training, and access to evidence-based tools that would allow them to skillfully render that vision of care.
It was a priority for me to enhance the braintrust of each member of the health workforce, from students, to new and seasoned professionals, as well as those in leadership roles. I was passionate about ethical practice and the chronic dilemmas faced by my colleagues. A growing array of challenges impeded their ability to attain successful outcomes; these spanned managing HIPAA and privacy requirements, to technology proficiency, interstate practice restrictions, and increased pressures to discharge and advance patients across the care continuum. These pressures also tapped workforce resilience and contributed to rapidly rising rates of burnout and staff turnover.
I wanted to advocate as fiercely and unapologetically for our workforce as I had for my patients and their families. Colleagues questioned my departure from my role, particularly having risen to case management’s upper echelons as a social worker. However, I knew more beckoned. I strived to elevate the quality of their efforts in a way that made a tangible and sustainable difference. Yet, how to make a career out of this vision was my newest challenge.
How it’s Going
My followers know me through assorted roles spanning educator, author, professional speaker, thought leader, supervisor, and content developer.
Fast forward to 2024. Every contract I take on allows me the unique opportunity to empower the knowledge and practice of the interprofessional health and behavioral health workforce.
✅ I received a Doctorate in Behavioral Health with a specialization in health equity, integrated care, quality, and trauma-informed leadership.
✅I develop curricula and teach at Baccalaureate, Masters, and Doctoral levels for integrated care, public health, and social work programs, and recently added the role of Doctoral advisor to this mix
✅ I’ve written 5 books, including the first texts dedicated to ethics in case management; The Ethical Case Manager: Tools & Tactics was published in May 2023. Book 6 will be out in Fall 2024, and entitled Behavioral Health for Case Management.
✅I’m editing my first book on Integrated Behavioral Health with publication in Winter 2024.
✅I serve professional associations in whatever ways my expertise can be optimized, contributing to industry regulatory resources such as codes of ethics, standards of practice, and serving on specialty committees.
✅ I’m editor of the HeartBeat of Case Management department for the scholarly journal, Professional Case Management, and first non-nurse to be elevated to this role for this publication.
✅I’ve left a legacy of published frameworks and models that I never could have dreamed of in the form of blogs, journal articles, book forewords and chapters, position papers, and online learning modules.
✅I serve as an industry thought leader for credentialing entities, industry coalitions and initiatives.
✅In June 2023, I was inducted as a Fellow in Case Management by CMSA, and the first social worker to be awarded this honor.
✅ Every effort helps me ensure that every patient, provider, and practitioner feels safe, seen, heard, and valued.
✅ I continue to learn daily so that I can best mentor the workforce and ensure their sustainability. All patients and their families deserve no less than the best interventions we can provide them.
Where it Will Go
There aren’t enough words to express my gratitude for the support everyone has shown to me these last 20 years. I’m just getting warmed up, and there’s much work to do in this industry. Watch out 2024!
Special thanks to those friends and family who have been part of this journey, and especially my better half for his unconditional support. My appreciation to these partners who continue to be the wind beneath my wings:
- Cummings Graduate Institute for Behavioral Health Studies
- George Mason University
- University at Buffalo School of Social Work
- The Case Management Society of America
- The Commission for Case Management Certification
- NASW Virginia and Metro DC
- Blue Bayou Press
- Case Management Institute, LLC
- MedBridge
- Rise Association
- Wolters Kluwer Health