At Paradigm Catastrophic Care Management, our Network Managers are at the heart of our approach to achieving positive patient outcomes. The catastrophically injured workers we help have highly individualized needs and require a partner who will be there with them and their families for the long haul. To ensure we have nurse case managers who can deliver the high level of communication, expertise, and compassion this job asks for means not only recruiting the best nurses with the right experience, but providing education and mentorship that is truly supportive.

If you talk to Network Managers at Paradigm, one word that comes up regularly is family. From coordinating with other nurses and medical directors to working with patients and their families, there is a need for genuine rapport and emotional support to successfully navigate these highly complex and challenging cases. While it is common to hear people at Paradigm refer to team members as family, for some of them, it’s especially true.

As Paradigm welcomes a new generation of case managers into the fold, many are following a family member into the profession. Kyle Hendrix, a recent nursing school graduate with a background in clinical research, is now joining his mom Lisa in the case management business in a clinical role after years on the systems and administrative side.

Lisa, who has been a nurse since 1994, always had a natural inclination as a caregiver and felt especially drawn to case management. As she puts it, “I’ve done a lot of different things with nursing over the years, but case management has been a passion for me and I’ve been doing it for most of my nursing career.”

“Personally, I love the autonomy of case management and the opportunities it offers for critical thinking,” Lisa continues. “There’s a deep fulfillment that comes with helping patients figure out how to overcome their individual obstacles and learn to live their best life with the abilities they’ve been given.”

The makings of a great nurse case manager
So how did case management become a family business for Lisa and Kyle? After graduating college, Kyle started out in the field of stem cell research, which included some work in hospitals. From speaking to him about his new career, Lisa couldn’t help but see the potential for a great case manager. “I think she had been working on me for a couple years, but one day, mom finally said to come out to Texas and become a nurse,” Kyle says. “So my wife, son, and I took the leap and now I’m a nursing school graduate doing my first year of floor work helping patients with neurological brain injuries.” Kyle had originally joined the business in an administrative support role initially while going to nursing school. This would expose him to the daily responsibilities of case management and allowed him to learn Paradigm’s proprietary platform while supporting the other Network Managers.

“Kyle is very smart and organized and he has a clinical mind with his research background,” adds Lisa. “My other son runs the finances, so we’ve always had a family run business, and having Kyle become a Paradigm Network Manager was a natural ask because he was already in the field.” Kyle stresses that he’s very excited to be learning across so many aspects of nursing at the same time, and being able to leverage Lisa’s experience and build on the bond and rapport they already have has helped him grow leaps and bounds in a very short time.

“Learning to be a Paradigm Network Manager is challenging, but I’m already extremely comfortable in it,” he says. “I’m not afraid to ask questions. They tell you in school to find your voice as a nurse, and I believe I was able to do that a little sooner than others because of the great mentoring I received from my mom.”

Lisa has also already noticed what a strong patient advocate Kyle has turned out to be. “I love that he is not afraid to advocate for his patients. Usually when you’ve got a new nurse, they don’t want to call the doctors or tell their charge nurse if something is not quite right, but Kyle is already practicing to be a staunch advocate for his patients for the short time that he’s been at his current facility. He will be a very good fit for Paradigm.”

The Paradigm difference—past and future
 Since joining Paradigm in 2009, Lisa has already seen a lot of change—but there are also constants. “What I’ve always told people is my favorite thing about working for Paradigm is I get to be a real nurse, I get to do what I need to do for the patient. Whether it’s hundreds of hours of physical therapy or flying them across the country to see a specialist, we can do what is needed for the best outcome,” Lisa explains. “I love the team and I love the expertise that we get to bring to cases.”

Adds Kyle, “So far, the Paradigm system has been my only experience with case management, but one of the key differences I’ve already noticed is a much bigger focus on the whole patient and positive outcomes as opposed to just treating an isolated diagnosis at a low cost.” He’s impressed by how important family is to the care process, “As a new nurse, I’m struck by how much working with a patient’s family is prioritized as well as the genuine desire of everyone in Paradigm to help people, it really has been a breath of fresh air.”

As for what the future holds for both generations, Lisa and Kyle both acknowledge the growing role of new technologies such as telehealth, but they both emphasize that technology should only be used to enable excellent patient care, not replace it. “There was some reluctance initially with teleservice, but with the pandemic we were all forced to adapt,” explains Lisa. “I see it as a great tool for us as case managers.”

Both nurses believe that a bright future for nurse case management requires a supportive and growth-oriented culture, and at Paradigm, it’s apparent at every level of the organization. “The constant education that Paradigm provides is top notch and extremely user-friendly,” says Kyle. “They’re always developing learning based on what is happening in the industry and the world and it helps us stay ahead as nurse case managers.”

“One of the things I want to acknowledge is our amazing leadership. Jo Carter, our Vice President of Network Services, has always made us forward thinking both from a clinical and business perspective,” says Lisa. “She’s always placed an importance on a succession plan and retirement strategy for this unique business. I have to give her credit for enabling me to bring my family on board. I have one son growing as a nurse and my other son running the finance side, so I feel confident in being able to pass the baton forward when the time comes.” She added, “We’ve always been a really close family, so it’s only natural that we would each want to participate in this beautiful and important business.”

Learn more about our dedicated and deeply experienced Paradigm Catastrophic Care Management Network Managers.

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