Case management is a health and social service used in diverse contexts, with different approaches and goes by many different names.  Case management sits broadly within the care coordination pillar of integrated care. It different from other coordination strategies, because it involves a direct partnership and collaboration between the person with a health condition and case manager. Yet there is no common language around case management, which impedes policy development and planning, effectiveness evaluation and quality appraisal.

Case managers perform actions (interventions), which can make a unique contribution towards the long-term care, life and community participation and support of the person. It is a complex intervention with interdependent and dependent components. The complexity of case management arises from the interaction of the different components: the model (conceptual and theoretical basis), implementation context (service), population and health condition of the case management recipient, the case manager's actions, the method and the focus or target for the intervention (e.g., person with health condition, family, or service provider).

The Case Management Taxonomy (CMTaxonomy) provides a common language, identifies, and defines the case management actions (interventions), their relationship and intensity. The CMTaxonomy provides a toolkit with two taxonomy trees (inputs and throughputs), and a glossary. Through use of the CMTaxonomy, it has been shown to be valuable for monitoring, policy and planning, quality appraisal research, service management and education in different case management contexts and countries, for people with health/social care, and support needs. 

The CMTaxonomy is registered under Creative Commons License

The taxonomy on community-based case management for a common language

• Sue Lukersmith
• Luis Salvador-Carulla
• Michael Millington

For further information or to contact the study team please email: sue.lukersmith@canberra.edu.au  

• Lukersmith, S., Salvador-Carulla, Luis., Chung, Y., Du, W., Sarkissian, A., Millington, M., (2023) A Realist Evaluation of Case Management Models for People with Complex Health Conditions Using Novel Methods and Tools—What Works, for Whom, and under What Circumstances?. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 20.5 (2023): 4362.
• Stretton, C., Chan, W. Y., & Wepa, D. (2022). Demystifying Case Management in Aotearoa New Zealand: A Scoping and Mapping Review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(1), 784.
• McRae, P., Kobel, C., Lukersmith, S., & Simpson, G. (2022). What Does It Take to Get Somebody Back to Work after Severe Acquired Brain Injury? Service Actions within the Vocational Intervention Program (VIP 2.0). International journal of environmental research and public health, 19(15), 9548.
• Lukersmith S., Taylor J., Salvador-Carulla L. (2021) Vagueness and Ambiguity in Communication of Case Management: A Content Analysis in the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme. International Journal of Integrated Care; 21(1): 17, 1–13. DOI: 
• Stiekema, A. P., Resch, C., Donkervoort, M., Jansen, N., Jurrius, K. H., Zadoks, J. M., & van Heugten, C. M. (2020). Case management after acquired brain injury compared to care as usual: study protocol for a 2-year pragmatic randomized controlled superiority trial with two parallel groups. Trials, 21, 1-16.
• Nalder, E. J., Saumur, T. M., Batliwalla, Z., Salvador-Carulla, L., Putnam, M., Spindel, A., ... & Hussein, H. (2020). A scoping review to characterize bridging tasks in the literature on aging with disability. BMC Health Services Research, 20(1), 1-14.
• Lukersmith, S, Millington, M and Salvador-Carulla, L (2016) What is Case Management? A Scoping and Mapping Review. International Journal of Integrated Care, 16(4): 2, pp. 1–13, DOI:
• Lukersmith, S., Fernandez, A., Millington, M., Salvador-Carulla, L. (2015. The brain injury case management taxonomy (BICM-T); a classification of community-based case management interventions for a common language. Disability and Health Journal; 9(2); pp272-280 plus appendices