Promoting a Culture of Continuous Learning

It's a beautiful thing when a career and a passion come together. Recently, I discovered my original Certified Case Manager certificate, now 25 years old. I am going to frame it along with my current CCM as a visual binding of a career with an on-going passion.

For me, board certification was a milestone, an impetus to continue to learn and develop professionally. As a Commission volunteer, supporting certification became my passion as a means to help shape the future of case management. Today, that passion fuels me as the Commission's first chief industry relations officer.

I imagine board certification as tossing a pebble into a pond. When you do so, the ripples multiply and expand. Now, consider the importance of a robust, meaningful credential and culture of continuous learning, being multiplied by more than 42,000 case managers over the course of their careers. This culture would keep expanding, like the ripples in the pond.

That's because certification is just the beginning, case managers must invest in continuous learning to keep current. Ongoing certification elevates the importance of ethical practice, quality care and a safe, person-centered experience for everyone- clients, clinicians on the team and employers.

The Commission stands ready to meet the workforce demand for trained and qualified professional case managers, but we cannot do it alone. My role as the chief industry relations officer is to reach out to new partners that will help drive and facilitate professional case management as a career pathway.

We seek academic and membership organizations as well as large employers that aim to advance the critical value of case managers. These organizations are willing to expend resources to get case managers certified. They require certification at hire or soon-after. They pay or reimburse continuing education and recognize the CCM as the marker for best practice.

When they join us as Partners in Excellence, we can listen together to what professional case managers need to become better and to enhance their teams. Only by working together can we develop and advance the next generation of case managers, ready to meet these challenges with innovative solutions.

This is what reignites my passion for certification- to mentor, to guide, to develop and to partner for a culture of continuous case manager learning.