Identifying care coordination interventions provided to community-dwelling older adults using electronic health records

Although care coordination is a popular intervention, there is no standard method of delivery. Also little is known about who benefits most, or characteristics that predict the amount of care coordination needed, especially with chronically ill older adults. The purpose of this study was to identify types and amount of nurse care coordination interventions provided to 231 chronically ill older adults who participated in a 12-month home care medication management program in the Midwest. For each participant, the nurse care coordinator spent an average of 134 min/mo providing in-person home care, 48min/mo of travel, and 18min/mo of indirect care occurring outside the home visit. This accounted for 67.2%, 23.8%, and 9.0% of nursing time, respectively, for home visits, travel, and indirect care. Four of 11 nursing interventions focused on medication management were provided to all participants. Seven of the 11 main interventions were individualized according to each person's special needs. Wide variations were observed in time provided with in-person home care and communications with multiple stakeholders. Study findings indicate the importance of individualizing interventions and the variability in the amount of nursing time needed to provide care coordination to chronically ill older adults.