Italy: new needs in health care, here comes the case manager

The case manager is a new job in healthcare that has the aim of creating tailored assistance to those patients who need home care and specialised assistance. Several masters courses are on offer for recent graduates and health care workers.

The ?case manager? is a new profession that has arisen out of the recent trends to not hospitalise patients as much, meaning that there is a greater need for multi-disciplinary home care. Adriano Pessina is in charge of a master called ?Case manager. Bioethics, humanities and Icf to design and join networks in favour of people with disabilities? at the Cattolica University in Milan. He says: ? In the last few years chronic invalidating illness has dominated over acute invalidating illnesses. These kinds of patients do not stay in the hospital but in their homes, where they are in need of assistance. This means that it is up to their families and near ones to find appropriate care givers, to find out about rehabilitation centres and organise the patient?s work or study life.?. It is here that the case manager comes into action. ?

The case manager is the one who has the tools to analyse the health care offers available on the market and to guarantee a complete health care and assistance to the patient? affirsms Pessina. The case manager is therefore a health care facilitator, capable of planning a persons services and to imagine new responses to their future needs.
Where do case managers work? ?They can be found in the Asls (the Italian local health care companies), in local agencies, hospitals, in cooperatives, Ngo?s and in all those initiatives that deal with the territories resources. The case manager?s position is one that already exists, but it has no name and above all no clearly defined role, it has, over the years, adapted to changing circumstances and ad hoc training courses.?

This scenario is confirmed by Marcello Turno, lecturer of the Multilevel Case Manager masters course that has been, for the last four years, run by the Lumsa. ? Our course is frequented mainly by people already working in the sector and who feel the need for adequate training that prepares them to the new needs that users have.? 80% of those attending the course at the Cattolica University are also workers in the healthcare sector. ?This is an element of strength in the training course, as it is enriched by people?s experiences?, considers Pessina. ? Often during the masters course and in the internship sessions a number of activities are begun that are then complete in the health care system.? Lumsa?s masters is a level I course, so it is open to three-year graduates. What opportunities does it offer? ?Of the eleven students who graduated in 2005, four found work a few weeks after the end of the course.?

The basic prerequisite for those who want this job, says Adriano Pessina : ?is flexibility, this is essential to successfully pull together social, economic and health issues and to create a unique network tailored to each patient?s needs starting from an abstract model.?

Info: www.lumsa.it
www.unicatt.it/masteruniversitario