Care planning in home care: an exploratory study.

Care Planning is one of the most important responsibilities of the case manager in home care. Research on how care plan decisions are made is scarce in the case management literature. The purpose of this exploratory study was to determine the factors that influence the decision-making process of case managers within the Edmonton Home Care Program (EHCP) when developing care plans. A volunteer sample of six EHCP case managers from three different disciplines was selected: two registered nurses (BScN), two occupational therapists (BScoT), and two social workers (BSW). With the use of fictional case studies, these professionals were asked to construct care plans. Individual semi-structured interviews and a group session permitted in-depth exploration of their decision-making process. Findings suggest that client and/or caregiver characteristics appear to be the most influential in determining care plans. It was also found that case managers are not comfortable with fiscal accountability.