In today’s social and healthcare services landscape, integration between hospital and community care and the effective management of care pathways represent one of the main challenges in ensuring continuity, quality, and appropriateness of care. In this context, the role of the Case Manager emerges as a key element in coordinating and supporting patients’ clinical and social pathways, promoting a person-centered approach focused on individual needs.

The Case Manager operates across different care settings with the aim of facilitating continuity of care, reducing service fragmentation, and ensuring integrated management of complex needs. This professional figure acts as a link between different levels of care, contributing to the reduction of avoidable hospital admissions, the effective management of chronic conditions, and the promotion of personalized care pathways.

The Case Manager role requires a combination of clinical, organizational, and relational competencies, including:

• clinical skills to understand and interpret health needs;
• coordination skills to organize complex interventions;
• communication skills to encourage active participation of individuals in their own care pathways;
• the ability to work within multidisciplinary teams, fostering cohesion among professionals from different sectors.

The Master’s Programme in Case / Case Management in Hospital and Community Settings for Healthcare Professionals at the University of Parma responds precisely to the need to train professionals capable of undertaking this role with competence and strategic vision. The educational pathway integrates:

• up-to-date theoretical knowledge on the dynamics of integrated care;
• methodological tools for managing complex cases;
• practical exercises, Project Work, and simulations that make the training immediately applicable in everyday service practice;
• opportunities for dialogue and exchange with professionals and operational settings.

Participating in the Master’s Programme means acquiring skills that are increasingly required by today’s care models, which are characterized by growing clinical complexity, service fragmentation, and the need for strong coordination between hospital and community care. In a social and healthcare system that is evolving toward increasingly integrated models of care, the Case Manager represents not only a functional response to care needs, but also a bridge between professions, contexts, and services.