Case Management

New roles for nurses are emerging as managed-care organisations continue to evolve. Many of these roles are new for nurses; others expand or redefine traditional roles in the diabetes disease management environment in integrated healthcare systems. It is important now to redefine these roles for nurses in a way which supports the organisations’s quality outcomes.Patient education, one of the cornerstones in diabetes disease management programmes, has been an important nursing role for decades. In the diabetes disease management environment, the challenge for nurses is to provide appropriate education to the diabetes population in a way which acknowledges the continuum of care, the course of the disease and the progression of patient learning needs. Much of the outcomes research studying the effectiveness of patient education programmes is related to traditional, hospital-based programmes. Simply adapting traditional diabetes education programmes may not be sufficient to address patient education needs for the entire diabetes population within the integrated healthcare system.Phased diabetes competency for nurses is built on the premise that both patients and nurses acquire diabetes expertise in a phased, progressive manner. This model matches the competency of nurses at each level with parallel competencies for patients with diabetes.