Social Work In Health Care

1
Social Work In Health Care

• Chapter 10

2
Introduction

• Social services are needed in a hospital because
• All of the patients needs are important.
• Patients require financial help.
• Social service workers create important links to
  the community.
• The American Hospital Association reports they
  have social work services in 75 of their
  hospitals.
• Medicine and social work joined hands for the
  first time at Massachusetts General Hospital in
  1905.

3
Introduction

• 15 of the United States gross national product
  was spent on health care in l998.
• In l986 the number of health care social workers
  was 50,000.
• The majority of health care social workers
  practice in long-term care hospitals.

4
Definition of Social Work in Health Care

• Social work in health care settings is practiced
  in collaboration with medicine and also with
  public health programs.
• Social work addresses itself to illness brought
  about by or related to social and environmental
  stresses that result in failures in social
  functioning and social relationships.

5
HMO and Social Work

• One of the most important developments for social
  workers in health care was the Health Maintenance
  Organization Act of l973.
• Originally the HMO Act required the provision of
  social services in HMOs.
• This provision was later eliminated by several
  subsequent congressional actions.

6
Social Work Services

• Social workers in health care services use the
  problem solving method in assisting individuals,
  groups and communities in solving personal and
  family health problems.
• Social work is involved at various levels of
  prevention
• Primary health education, encouraging
  immunizations, good mental health practice in
  families, prenatal and postnatal care.
• Secondary early screening programs for
  detection of disease, checkups, encouraging
  treatment.
• Tertiary or rehabilitation preventing further
  deterioration of a disease or problem.

7
The Meaning of Illness

• Illness encompasses medical, social, economic and
  even spiritual components.
• Broadly speaking, illness impaired role
  function may result from factors not wholly
  organic, but social, psychological, cultural, and
  economic.
• Illness can result in
• Forced dependency
• Disorganization of family
• Loss of self-respect
• Feelings of helplessness

8
Meaning of Illness

• The increase in chronic disease among Americans
  has literally changed the meaning of illness for
  a great many people.
• People have to live with chronic disease, adjust
  to pain, change habits- diet, quit smoking,
  exercise, and change employment.

9
Meaning of Illness

• With chronic conditions arthritis, heart
  disease, AIDS, some cancers the patient must be
  a partner in the care of the disease, in its
  prevention and deterioration.
• By 1991 conservative estimates were that
  1,100,000 people around the globe had developed
  AIDS.
• Social work comes into the picture in helping the
  patient to adjust, to accept medical regimens,
  and to relate to the health complex involved in
  the broadened care aspects of chronic disease.

10
The Role of Social Work in Health Care

• The social workers can be most valuable at the
  time the patient has been admitted or discharged
  from a hospital or during follow-up care once
  leaving the hospital.
• One purpose of social work is to support and
  strengthen family life.
• The social worker makes use of existing services
  through referrals or assists in mobilizing the
  untapped potential of the community to prevent
  illness or to restore the sick and disabled to
  health and usefulness.

11
The Future of Social Work in the Health Care
Services

• In l998 it was estimated that the number of
  uninsured Americans was one out of four.
• The health care system of the United States is
  more costly than Canada, Germany or Japan.
• One in five American children has no public or
  private health insurance coverage.
• One in four black children and one in three
  Hispanic children have no coverage.