Over the past 30 years, case management has become a ubiquitous intervention approach throughout the mental health and health care fields. Often poorly defined, case management, perhaps a linguistic repackaging of -social work? or -social casework,? encompasses a wide range of environmental interventions with persons in need, including persons suffering from severe mental illness, substance abuse, and chronic medical conditions such as HIV, tuberculosis, and diabetes. In health care, the term case management can refer to cost-conscious telephone interventions to monitor medical services or to discharge planning from an inpatient facility. In mental health, case management may refer to helping a client obtain disability benefits or apply for housing assistance. Or it may refer to a friendly paraprofessional visitor who assists with homemaking and transportation.
Addressing these disparate needs, an array of case management models have been identified and articulated: brokerage, rehabilitation, strengths based, and clinical. Other adjectives have been frequently used to characterize less specific case
management interventions: -intensive,? -assertive,? and -standard.? Understanding the case management literature often requires readers to carefully examine details of the actual interventions and human resource issues to determine what the term case management means in each situation.
Were the interventions short-term or long-term?
Were the relationships between case managers and clients personal or administrative?
Was -case management? the main activity of the worker or one of an array of interventions?
What were the duration and frequency of case management contacts?
Were the scope of case management interventions focused on clients holistically or were they narrowly focused on a single illness or life domain?
How large were case managers' caseloads?
Did case managers address the interplay between psychological and environmental concerns?
What was the professional training and experience of the case managers?