Abstract Background The reorganization of home care provides nurses the opportunity to move to a role of “Care Manager”, affording a more effective management of chronic patients. This study aims to investigate whether the introduction of this new nursing role improved care related outcomes in people with one or more chronic conditions in primary care setting. Methods Articles considered for this review had to assess the outcomes obtained from outpatient care and home care in which the care manager nurse had been involved. Literature search was performed in PubMed, Cinahl, Scopus, Cochrane, and Google Scholar. Results 20 studies have been selected. Care manager was introduced mainly into the American healthcare systems (80%) and only partly in the European ones (20%). Nurse provided outpatient care (95%) and home care (75%) dealing with the development of the care plan, therapeutic education and proactive prevention. The interventions were based on three fundamental principles of the Chronic Care Model: care teams, self-care support, computerized information system. The health outcomes achieved include: reduction of health care costs, hospital admissions and mortality rates; improvements of disease-specific clinical parameters and quality of life, and an excellent level of satisfaction on patients' and healthcare professionals' side (perceived quality of care). Conclusions The literature shows that nursing interventions carried out by the care manager in collaboration with other primary care professionals provided positive results in many ways. Key messages The reorganization of home care provides nurses the opportunity to take the role of “Care Manager”. This figure could afford a more effective management of chronic patients. Nurse provided outpatient care (95%) and home care (75%) dealing with the development of the care plan, therapeutic education and proactive prevention. These interventions led to positive results.