Care Coordination Strategies in Reforming Health Care: A Concept Analysis

With the growing number of individuals with chronic conditions and the associated healthcare costs, there is a need to improve how health care is delivered from an individual provider standpoint as well as a systemwide perspective. Such delivery can be accomplished through improved care coordination.

Care coordination is a complex term that encompasses the full array of healthcare delivery activities across all systems of care. This includes organizing the care, improving quality of health care delivered, and achieving cost savings. In working to achieve this goal, the nurse is well suited to provide oversight in this process in assuring that the components of care coordination are conducted efficiently and effectively.

While the nurse is the optimal provider for this position, the nurse's defined role in this process is not always clear. This article focuses on the term care coordination, which includes the definitions of care coordination, impact on nursing, attributes, antecedents, consequences, and empirical referents for this term. Care coordination is also differentiated from case management to add clarity to the role.