by Jennifer Wolff, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Health Policy & Management, Johns Hopkins University Medical Center. Reports on the proposal for “Guided Care” being tested by Johns Hopkins University Medical Center. Under this approach, a “guided care nurse” is assigned to help guide chronically ill elderly patients and their caregivers through the medical care system. Johns Hopkins has recognized a need to help caregivers coordinate and manage the care of their elderly loved ones, because at present medical care for the chronically ill is “fragmented, discontinuous, difficult to access, inefficient, unsafe and expensive.”
