Care managers cannot meet dying  COVID-19 patients and their bereft children in the emergency room or Hospital. They are not allowed in due to COVID restrictions. However, care Managers play a big role in end of life issues, while family remains in the community and the client is isolated from them in the hospital.

Procedures for the family when loved one in the hospital.

The care manager was help by

1.creating a communication plan from the outset and figuring out who’s the “medical quarterback” in charge of monitoring a loved one. Typically, this is a specialist, such as a hospitalist, critical care medicine doctor, or intensivis2.

 2.Facilitating family meeting for family while loved one in the hospital

3.Suggesting technology family can use to communicate with loved one and with other family members or friends

4.. Help family understand the part family can play I admissions- preparing a go binder ahead of time etc.,

5. By designating one person to speak for the whole family- the process to improve family getting information from overloaded hospital staff

6 Preparing family & loved one’s medical team for communication death in the hospital – what care manager can do to assist

7.. Supporting the family member when they are dying while not being present

8.. Bereavement of family post-death- use of hospice

Care Managers are their navigators through all five stages of dying

They many times can introduce palliative care or hospice and often GCM’s can help the family and client to bring in hospice or palliative care long before the average time, which is the last month or 15 days before death.

 The final passage through life can be emotionally charged.  

If the family is following a long labyrinth to the end, the blind alleys may be blocked by cultural, religious, and moral beliefs and now COCID -19 regulations. Care managers can find an opening through this maze.  Money, family dynamics, and fear of dying can all explode a fraught crisis of care in dying. When the important end-of-life decisions need to be made, the stress of the responsibility and the seriousness of the situation can break a wave of distress fear and anxiety over the “whole family system” the dying elder. The geriatric care manager specializes in this whole family system.

 Care Managers can often help facilitate throbbing discussions

They can facilitate family members coming together to work as a functional

unit.  Understanding the differing viewpoints is critical.  Knowing what a parent wants and does not want during the last days and hours of life help define and simplify the role of the family.  It relieves the family of the burden of having the responsibility of making decisions that may not be what their parents want. Turning this around can also avoid family conflicts when adult children may have differing values.

Helping family Legally plan for Death

 Proactive discussions and legal planning building a circle of care can help to reduce some of the potential conflicts. Good legal guidance can also help to pay for care when an adult child wants to finance in-home care. They can point the family to legal guidance to prepare end of life documents, that are so important, especially now with COVID when death can come so quickly but geriatric care managers do much more with clients and families who are facing the end of life

Free Webinar-Deliver a Good End of Life- Add Death and Dying to Your Care Management Agency

Serve Your Client until Death Do You Part

Join me Thursday March 11 and learn why End of Life Services Are a perfect new service for care managers

 In this 1 ½ -hour  FREE webinar you will learn how to

1.Transition the patient/family through the five stages of death

2,Help clients be active participants in their care

3.Give the family/caregiver tools to manage care

4 Provide family center care to caregiver and family

5 Choose the right support services through all stages of death

6.Introduce Hospice and Palliative care and work with their team

7 Use ALCA End of Life Benefits During COVID

8.Use  COVID -19  Family Coaching for GCM

Sign Up 

If you really want to add End of Life to your care management business sign up for this webinar now

Gwendolyn LAZO Harris MA, CT,Seniors at Home , San Francisco and Diane LeVan MA both highly expert care managers, created a seminal chapter on Palliative Care and End of Life Care Manager in my book Care Manager’s Working With the Aging Family