Research on the basic path of the integration of medical social work into general medicine at general hospital

Abstract

The general practitioners are facing a series of issues in aspect of medical humanities: incomprehensive humanity care, insufficient subjective components in medical records, low service efficiency particularly during heavy work load in outpatient service. To adapt the challenges, a general hospital in Shanxi province had explored a pathway to integrate the medical social work into patient care in general practice since 2017. The medical social workers jointed the general practice team, involved in outpatient service and patient education, generated humanity records to improve the humanistic care, and to promote doctor-patient communication. The general medical services were significantly improved after the program implementation in the hospital. Key words: Social work; General practice; Medical services