Health care in the 21st century is about big dreams and clear intentions of making a difference in the world, through imagination, creativity and technology. We need a new approach to leadership in order to make health care in the 21st century a reality. We need visionary leaders who are grounded in purpose and fueled by passion to transform health care by building conscious and productive communities of people, and by so doing, reaping tangible and intangible results from which all stakeholders profit. Visioneering is the process that helps passionate people successfully create the future we really want. Visioneering is based on the idea that everyone and every community has a unique and important mission. Visioneering is a fresh philosophy-bold, with a fresh attitude, creating successful results based on passion, people and profit.

Hard work and doing things on our own are not the keys of finding success. A price must be paid to achieve our goals but should it be sleep, health, relationships, sanity and poor health care outcomes? Trying to make your future happen on your own can land you back where you started, even further from your vision. Case management is at a crossroads. To improve health care delivery case management must be integrated into delivery systems and models. Visioneering is the process that will allow case management to create an impact.

The Academy of Certified Case Managers and the Case Management Society of America sponsored an invitational meeting Dec. 22, 2002, that focused on "Visioneering Case Management's Future." The stakeholders of case management came together to share their concerns and see what we could do when we worked together.

This meeting addressed the global issues in case management as well as the practical day-to-day issues. Global issues like the definition of case management, role and function of case managers, case management education, and legislative issues but also the practical issues of case manager burnout, case load, recruitment and retention, and more were all discussed.

It was a meeting characterized by HOPE. Over 40 participants came together expressing and sharing hope. Hope in the sense that there is a vision of case management in the future and that together, it could happen. There was a lot of enthusiasm in designing the future and making it happen. All participants of this conference should be commended for the passion and sharing expressed.

Out of this conference will come a Case Management Leadership Coalition. There was unanimous agreement and passion in the creation of the Case Management Leadership Coalition from the participants at the conference.