title: Critical pathways as an essential part of a disease management program.
abstract: Disease management is becoming a common tool utilized by health systems for managing patients with chronic diseases. Part of the success of disease management can be attributed to the use of critical pathways. Critical pathways are the tools that prompt decisions to be made based on clinical practice guidelines. In addition to allowing nursing case managers to have significant input into patient treatment decisions, critical pathways assist disease management programs in realizing significant cost savings as well as assisting in outcomes management activities.
authors.affiliation: University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, Philadelphia, USA.
authors.forename: J I
authors.initials: JI
authors.lastname: Rohrbach
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D019090:Case Management; D002908:Chronic Disease; D003363:Cost Control; D019091:Critical Pathways / Q000191:economics; D019468:Disease Management; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D014481:United States