The Changing Face of Health Care Social Work

Abstract

This book reviews the basic concepts related to the delivery of social work services in health care settings. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) supports health care changes as well as improvements to health care access, quality, and service. Social workers are trained to address the psychosocial needs of the patients served and support an important continuum of care essential for linking the person to the environment. The book presents several methods usually linked to the provision of clinical health care social work services: cognitive-behavioral approaches, interpersonal psychotherapeutic/psychodynamic approaches, strategic or solution-oriented methods, and crisis intervention. In the health care setting, crisis intervention can be severely limited by resources and agency role and function. Health care social workers should not allow administrative pressure to provide only reimbursable concrete services in their practice strategy. Health care social workers need to be knowledgeable of the importance of documentation and the different types of professional record keeping process recording, diagnostic recording, audio and video recording, time series recording, computerized and standardized records, and problem-oriented recording (POR) that can lead to effective, efficient, and comprehensive documentation. Accurate record keeping in the health care environment is central to the concept identifying treatment goals and measuring objectives as part of evidence-based practice. The book also explores issues related to professionals working in case management and the practice of discharge planning, and concerns prevention, wellness counseling, and then the various complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) approaches currently used in health care.