Case management of chronic ventilator patients. Reduce average length of stay and cost by half

The implementation of the case management model and the use of critical pathways has become a major strategy to improve quality of care and cope with measuring and managing costs. Grant Medical Center, a 640-bed Level I Trauma Center, began case managing its chronic ventilator patients in July, 1993. A 30-day critical pathway was developed using a multidisciplinary team approach. In case managing these patients, many problematic issues were identified, such as lack of adequate involvement by staff experienced in specific disciplines and multiple physician decision makers for each case. By increasing multidisciplinary collaboration, care of these patients was systematically changed and streamlined. Over a 2-year period, the average length of stay for chronic ventilator patients decreased from 74.5 days to 41.9 days, and the average cost per case decreased from $189,080 to $107,019.