ABSTRACT
In the healthcare environment of the late 1990s, case-management terminology is both ubiquitous and ambiguous. Every healthcare practitioner, including those who work in cardiac rehabilitation, has a different idea about what case management is or should be. Many associate it with managed care efforts to control delivery of healthcare services. While the growth of managed care has rapidly increased the use of case management, such approaches have historically preceded and currently exist outside of the managed care domain as well. Primary care models in the nursing field were early predecessors of modern case-management approaches (1). Today, the American Nurses Association recognizes case management as a specialty field of practice and offers nurses the opportunity to become certified as case managers as well as cardiac rehabilitation nurses (2).
