Medical social work

Last updated

Medical social work is a sub-discipline of social work that addresses social components of medicine. [1] Medical social workers typically work in a hospital, outpatient clinic, community health agency, skilled nursing facility, long-term care facility or hospice. They work with patients and their families in need of psychosocial help. Medical social workers assess the psychosocial functioning of patients and families and intervene as necessary. The role of a medical social worker is to "restore balance in an individual’s personal, family and social life, in order to help that person maintain or recover his/her health and strengthen his/her ability to adapt and reintegrate into society." [2] Interventions may include connecting patients and families to necessary resources and support in the community such as preventive care; providing psychotherapy, supportive counseling, or grief counseling; or helping a patient to expand and strengthen their network of social supports. [3] In short, a medical social worker provides services in three domains: intake and psychosocial assessment, case management and supportive therapy, and discharge planning and ongoing care that extends after hospitalization. They are also involved in patient and staff education, as well as with policy research for health programs. [4] Professionals in this field typically work with other disciplines such as medicine, nursing, physical, occupational, speech, and recreational therapy.

Contents

History

The history of medical social work is intertwined with the history of social medicine. Dr. Richard Cabot, a physician associated with one of the earliest medical social work departments, noted that the active efforts to combat preventable diseases emerged through the actions of social workers. These actions included initiatives like the Anti-Tuberculosis Crusade, the Clean Milk Crusade, the Pure Food Law, the Playground Association, and the School of Hygiene. [5]

Britain

Medical social workers in Britain and Ireland were originally known as hospital almoners or "lady almoners" until the profession was officially renamed medical social work in the 1960s. [6] In 1895, Mary Stewart became the first lady almoner in Britain with her appointment to the Royal Free Hospital in London for a three-month trial period. [7] Some sources credit Anne Cummins as the "mother of almoners" as she had the ability and the funding to first establish a comprehensive social work service at St Thomas's Hospital in London in 1909. [8] Lady almoners determined the patient's ability to contribute towards their own medical care at charity hospitals. This approach was also followed by Australia during its vassal period with Great Britain. They adopted an approach similar to strength-based case management, and formal education for almoners was introduced in Australia in the early 1920s to carry out the required tasks. [9]

In 1945, the Institute of Almoners in Britain was formed, which, in 1964, was renamed as the Institute of Medical Social Workers. The Institute was one of the founder organizations of the British Association of Social Workers, which was formed in 1970. In Britain, medical social workers were transferred from the National Health Service (NHS) into local authority Social Services Departments in 1974, and generally became known as hospital social workers.

China

Medical social work was started in 1921 by Ida Pruitt in Beijing. In-service training was given to social workers for carrying out casework, adoption services and recuperation services. [10]

India

Dr. Clifford Manshardt an American missionary in 1936 started formal training in social work in India through Dorabji Tata Graduate School of Social Work. [10] The first medical social worker was appointed in 1946 in J.J. Hospital, Bombay. In 1960s scope of medical social workers increased in India. [11]

Ireland

In Ireland, the origins of medical social work go back to paediatrician Ella Webb, the first physician in Ireland to appoint almoners to work in her dispensary for sick children that she established in the Adelaide Hospital in Dublin, and to Winifred Alcock, the first almoner appointed by Webb in 1918. [12]

Singapore

Almoners from St Thomas’ Hospital, London, who arrived in Singapore in 1948 and 1949 are recognized as the forerunners of hospital social worker's in Singapore. Medical Social Worker is a Singapore Ministry of Health recognized profession for psychosocial care and a required professional by bylaw in every clinical specialty department. [13] [14] [15]

United States

The Massachusetts General Hospital was the first American hospital to have professional social workers on site, in the early 1900s. Garnet I. Pelton, Ida Maud Cannon and Dr. Richard Clarke Cabot were the central figures of the hospital social work. [16] Clarke credited his approach as similar to that of Anne Cummins in London. [17] The establishment of medical social work services in the United States is attributed to the inspirational and insightful efforts of the Society for the Aftercare of the Insane in England, the reorganization of Lady Almoners' work by C.S. Loch and Colonel Montefiore, the visiting nurses who conducted the final medical tasks of the hospitals, and the social service training Dr. Charles P. Emerson provided to medical students at Johns Hopkins University. [18] Cannon started specific training for medical social workers in 1912. The major duties carried out by medical social workers were case management, data collection, follow ups, care coordination, health education, financial assessment and discounting patient medical fees. [16] However, historically, social workers began engaging independently in the healthcare field much earlier. In 1893, Jane Addams established a medical dispensary at Chicago's Hull House. In 1912, social worker Anne Moore conducted a study on possible dispensary abuse in New York County. This was during a time when the prevailing belief about poverty was that it was an outcome of consequentialism. Moore found that 90% of the patients were deserving of free treatment. A survey conducted in 1976 revealed that half of the directors in federally mandated health planning bodies were social workers, and more than 17,000 social workers provided their services at varying levels in Medicare participating hospitals. [19]

Further reading

Books

Articles

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Respiratory therapist</span> Practitioner in cardio-pulmonary medicine

A respiratory therapist is a specialized healthcare practitioner trained in critical care and cardio-pulmonary medicine in order to work therapeutically with people who have acute critical conditions, cardiac and pulmonary disease. Respiratory therapists graduate from a college or university with a degree in respiratory therapy and have passed a national board certifying examination. The NBRC is responsible for credentialing as a CRT, or RRT,

Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social work practice draws from liberal arts and STEM areas such as psychology, sociology, health, political science, community development, law, and economics to engage with systems and policies, conduct assessments, develop interventions, and enhance social functioning and responsibility. The ultimate goals of social work include the improvement of people's lives, alleviation of biopsychosocial concerns, empowerment of individuals and communities, and the achievement of social justice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Health care</span> Prevention of disease and promotion of well-being

Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health professionals and allied health fields. Medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, midwifery, nursing, optometry, audiology, psychology, occupational therapy, physical therapy, athletic training, and other health professions all constitute health care. The term includes work done in providing primary care, secondary care, and tertiary care, as well as in public health.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Healthcare industry</span> Economic sector focused on health

The healthcare industry is an aggregation and integration of sectors within the economic system that provides goods and services to treat patients with curative, preventive, rehabilitative, and palliative care. It encompasses the creation and commercialization of products and services conducive to the preservation and restoration of well-being. The contemporary healthcare sector comprises three fundamental facets, namely services, products, and finance. It can be further subdivided into numerous sectors and categories and relies on interdisciplinary teams of highly skilled professionals and paraprofessionals to address the healthcare requirements of both individuals and communities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clinic</span> Outpatient health care facility

A clinic is a health facility that is primarily focused on the care of outpatients. Clinics can be privately operated or publicly managed and funded. They typically cover the primary care needs of populations in local communities, in contrast to larger hospitals which offer more specialized treatments and admit inpatients for overnight stays.

Health psychology is the study of psychological and behavioral processes in health, illness, and healthcare. The discipline is concerned with understanding how psychological, behavioral, and cultural factors contribute to physical health and illness. Psychological factors can affect health directly. For example, chronically occurring environmental stressors affecting the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, cumulatively, can harm health. Behavioral factors can also affect a person's health. For example, certain behaviors can, over time, harm or enhance health. Health psychologists take a biopsychosocial approach. In other words, health psychologists understand health to be the product not only of biological processes but also of psychological, behavioral, and social processes.

In China, the practice of medicine is a mixture of government, charitable, and private institutions, while many people rely on traditional medicine. Until reforms in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, physicians were quasi-government employees and with little freedom in the choice of the hospital to work with. In addition, decades of planned economic policy discouraged physicians from opening their own clinics, and the practice of medicine was generally under the control of local units, such as factories, government, offices, or communes. The reforms created a largely private practice, and physicians now are encouraged to open private clinics and for-profit hospitals.

The psychosocial approach looks at individuals in the context of the combined influence that psychological factors and the surrounding social environment have on their physical and mental wellness and their ability to function. This approach is used in a broad range of helping professions in health and social care settings as well as by medical and social science researchers.

Patient safety is a discipline that emphasizes safety in health care through the prevention, reduction, reporting and analysis of error and other types of unnecessary harm that often lead to adverse patient events. The frequency and magnitude of avoidable adverse events, often known as patient safety incidents, experienced by patients was not well known until the 1990s, when multiple countries reported significant numbers of patients harmed and killed by medical errors. Recognizing that healthcare errors impact 1 in every 10 patients around the world, the World Health Organization (WHO) calls patient safety an endemic concern. Indeed, patient safety has emerged as a distinct healthcare discipline supported by an immature yet developing scientific framework. There is a significant transdisciplinary body of theoretical and research literature that informs the science of patient safety with mobile health apps being a growing area of research.

A mental health professional is a health care practitioner or social and human services provider who offers services for the purpose of improving an individual's mental health or to treat mental disorders. This broad category was developed as a name for community personnel who worked in the new community mental health agencies begun in the 1970s to assist individuals moving from state hospitals, to prevent admissions, and to provide support in homes, jobs, education, and community. These individuals were the forefront brigade to develop the community programs, which today may be referred to by names such as supported housing, psychiatric rehabilitation, supported or transitional employment, sheltered workshops, supported education, daily living skills, affirmative industries, dual diagnosis treatment, individual and family psychoeducation, adult day care, foster care, family services and mental health counseling.

Case management is a managed care technique within the health care coverage system of the United States. It involves an integrated system that manages the delivery of comprehensive healthcare services for enrolled patients. Case managers are employed in almost every aspect of health care and these employ different approaches in the control of clinical actions.

Patient advocacy is a process in health care concerned with advocacy for patients, survivors, and caregivers. The patient advocate may be an individual or an organization, concerned with healthcare standards or with one specific group of disorders. The terms patient advocate and patient advocacy can refer both to individual advocates providing services that organizations also provide, and to organizations whose functions extend to individual patients. Some patient advocates are independent and some work for the organizations that are directly responsible for the patient's care.

Psychiatric rehabilitation, also known as psychosocial rehabilitation, and sometimes simplified to psych rehab by providers, is the process of restoration of community functioning and well-being of an individual diagnosed in mental health or emotional disorder and who may be considered to have a psychiatric disability.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Health administration</span> Field relating to administration of hospitals

Health administration, healthcare administration, healthcare management or hospital management is the field relating to leadership, management, and administration of public health systems, health care systems, hospitals, and hospital networks in all the primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Healthcare in South Korea</span>

Healthcare in South Korea is universal, although a significant portion of healthcare is privately funded. South Korea's healthcare system is based on the National Health Insurance Service, a public health insurance program run by the Ministry of Health and Welfare to which South Koreans of sufficient income must pay contributions in order to insure themselves and their dependants, and the Medical Aid Program, a social welfare program run by the central government and local governments to insure those unable to pay National Health Insurance contributions. In 2015, South Korea ranked first in the OECD for healthcare access. Satisfaction of healthcare has been consistently among the highest in the world – South Korea was rated as the second most efficient healthcare system by Bloomberg. Health insurance in South Korea is single-payer system. The introduction of health insurance resulted in a significant surge in the utilization of healthcare services. Healthcare providers are overburdened by government taking advantage of them.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nursing</span> Health care profession

Nursing is a health care profession that "integrates the art and science of caring and focuses on the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and human functioning; prevention of illness and injury; facilitation of healing; and alleviation of suffering through compassionate presence". Nurses practice in many specialties with varying levels of certification and responsibility. Nurses comprise the largest component of most healthcare environments. Shortages of qualified nurses are found in many countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hospital</span> Health care facility with specialized staff and equipment

A hospital is a healthcare institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emergency department to treat urgent health problems ranging from fire and accident victims to a sudden illness. A district hospital typically is the major health care facility in its region, with many beds for intensive care and additional beds for patients who need long-term care.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Clarke Cabot</span> American physician (1868–1939)

Richard Clarke Cabot was an American physician who advanced clinical hematology, was an innovator in teaching methods, and was a pioneer in social work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virginia M. Alexander</span> American physician

Virginia Margaret Alexander was an American physician, public health researcher, and the founder of the Aspiranto Health Home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Cummins (social worker)</span>

Anne Emily Cummins was an early British medical social worker who was later called the "mother of almoners".

References

  1. ↑ Jean, Dockhorn (1982). Essentials of social work programs in hospitals. Chicago: American Hospital Association. pp. 1+.
  2. ↑ A Social Worker's Guide to Professional Practice in Hospitals (PDF). Ordre professionnel des travailleurs sociaux du Québec. 1999. p. 4.
  3. ↑ "A Complete Guide to Medical Social Work" . Retrieved 2018-09-12.
  4. ↑ Scesny, Alice M. (1991). Essentials for Directors of Social Work Programs in Health Care. AHA Catalog No. 187104. Chicago, Illinois: American Hospital Association. pp. 30–33. ISBN   0-87258-559-X.
  5. ↑ Cabot, Richard Clarke (1915). Social Service and the Art of Healing. New York: Moffat, Yard & Co. pp. 32–37.
  6. ↑ Nottingham, Christ; Dougall, Rona (2007), "A Close and Practical Association with the Medical Profession: Scottish Medical Social Workers and Social Medicine, 1940–1975", Medical History, 51 (3): 309–336, doi:10.1017/S0025727300001460, PMC   1894864 , PMID   17603656
  7. ↑ Burnham, David (2016), The Social Worker Speaks: A History of Social Workers Through the Twentieth Century, Routledge, pp. 41–43, ISBN   978-1-317-01546-8
  8. ↑ David Burnham (24 February 2016). The Social Worker Speaks: A History of Social Workers Through the Twentieth Century. Routledge. pp. 43–45. ISBN   978-1-317-01546-8.
  9. ↑ "Paying for healthcare: Life in Britain before the 'free' NHS".
  10. 1 2 Lynne M. Healy, International Social Work: Professional Action in an Interdependent World, Oxford University Press, 2001, ISBN   9780195124460, p.24
  11. ↑ G.R. Madan, Indian Social Problems (Vol-2): Social Disorganization and Reconstruction, Allied Publishers, 1967, ISBN   9788184244601, p.351
  12. ↑ Kearney, Noreen; Skehill, Caroline (2005), "Chapter 8: An Overview of the Development of Health-Related Social Work in Ireland", Social Work in Ireland: Historical Perspectives, Institute of Public Administration, pp. 165–170, ISBN   978-1-904541-23-3
  13. ↑ "MOH | Career & Practices".
  14. ↑ Goh, Soon Noi (2020). "Development of Social Work in Health Care in Singapore". Medical Social Work in Singapore. pp. 3–26. doi:10.1142/9789811227493_0001. ISBN   978-981-12-2748-6. S2CID   225288400.
  15. ↑ "Home".
  16. 1 2 Sarah Gehlert, Teri Browne, Handbook of Health Social Work , John Wiley & Sons, 2011, ISBN   9781118115916
  17. ↑ "Cummins, Anne Emily". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/75263.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  18. ↑ Cannon, Ida M. (1917). Social Work in Hospitals: A Contribution to Progressive Medicine. New York: The Russell Sage Foundation. pp. 6–17.
  19. ↑ Bracht, Neil F. (1978). Social Work in Health Care: A Guide to Professional Practice. New York: The Haworth Press. pp. 3–18. ISBN   978-0-917724-04-6.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.