EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

What Factors Influence Case Managers' Resource Allocation Decisions? A Systematic Review of the Literature

Kimberly D. Fraser and Carole Estabrooks
Additional contact information
Kimberly D. Fraser: Faculty of Nursing, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, kdfraser@ualberta.ca
Carole Estabrooks: Faculty of Nursing, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Medical Decision Making, 2008, vol. 28, issue 3, 394-410

Abstract: Objective. Case managers' decisions directly affect the amount and type of services individual clients receive, as well as overall home care program available resources. We know little about the resource allocation decision-making processes of case managers. The question guiding this review was, ``What factors influence case managers' resource allocation decisions in home care?'' Methods. The authors did a systematic literature review to answer the above question. After assessing the articles for inclusion, they assessed the quality (internal validity) of each included study. They described the characteristics of the studies and provided a synthesis of the findings of the primary studies. Results. Five qualitative and 6 quantitative articles met the inclusion criteria for this review. The findings of these studies are equivocal. Despite this, the authors were able to create a preliminary taxonomy of the factors that influence case manager resource allocation decisions. Despite evidence-based decision making receiving so much attention in contemporary health care literature, the authors found a near absence of reference to research use in the context of case manager decision making. Conclusions. Currently, there are relatively few studies in the literature on the factors that influence, and how they are used in, case manager resource allocation decisions. Studies are often lacking in terms of conceptual clarity and theoretical framing. They are often not guided by theoretical frameworks and are not situated within the larger field of decision making or even within the clinical decision-making literature. These issues are impeding progress in this area.

Keywords: home care; case management; care planning; resource allocation; decision making; service authorization. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0272989X07312709 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:medema:v:28:y:2008:i:3:p:394-410

DOI: 10.1177/0272989X07312709

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Medical Decision Making
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:sae:medema:v:28:y:2008:i:3:p:394-410