One may wonder why some healthcare facilities work effortlessly in providing comprehensive patient care while others struggle to make progress. Well, it all comes down to the power of collaboration. In particular, social workers collaborate closely with other medical specialists to deliver patient-centered and comprehensive care.
Aside from improving the overall patient’s health, this cooperation also helps to reduce healthcare costs by addressing the sources of health issues. So, how do social workers partner with other healthcare professionals? Let’s find out.
What is healthcare social work?
Healthcare social work primarily focuses on providing social and emotional support to patients struggling with medical trauma such as chronic, acute or terminal illnesses. Healthcare social workers offer information and counseling services to help clients recover from physical or mental sickness. They also recommend patients to other social services, such as housing possibilities, financial aid, support networks and employment prospects.
Asocial worker will work with other healthcare workers, including case managers, nurses and doctors, to ensure patients get the required assistance and establish comprehensive care plans. They also play a significant part in several non-medical patient care tasks, including the following:
• Providing quick therapy and counseling
• Assessing the mental and emotional health of patients and their families
• Communicating patient concerns and needs to the larger medical team
• Helping patients and their families find their way around the medical system
How social workers collaborate with other healthcare professionals
Social workers bring unique insights to collaborative teams. Their abilities enable them to see situations that are not immediately apparent to others. They have a special viewpoint on how people interact with and are impacted by systems.
Here are some ways social workers collaborate with other healthcare professionals in multidisciplinary teams:
• Provide emotional support and counseling
Nurses are critical in the healthcare system by establishing quality assurance procedures, developing standard nursing procedures, processing case management and directing patient care. Nurses and social workers collaborate to provide patients with comprehensive treatment that considers their physical and emotional needs.
For instance, social workers may work together with nurses to offer psychological assistance to a patient who has recently received a challenging diagnosis. They can assist their patients in planning for the future and dealing with feelings of anxiety and uncertainty.
Additionally, they can work with nurses to locate individuals who might be vulnerable to psychological problems. For instance, a nurse may observe signs of despair or anxiety in an individual with a difficult diagnosis. A social worker can offer more assistance after being recommended by the nurse.
• Provide comprehensive care
Medical professionals and social workers collaborate to ensure patients receive complete treatment for their physical and emotional needs. For instance, a social worker can work with a doctor to develop a care strategy for a patient with a heart disease.
They can discuss the advantages of keeping a healthy diet, maintaining cholesterol levels and exercising frequently with the patient. Furthermore, they may support an individual emotionally as they navigate the difficulties of having a chronic condition.
Additionally, social workers and doctors work together to guarantee that individuals receive the right kind of medical care. The procedure may help physicians understand the patient’s requirements and create a more successful care strategy. The social workers’ findings into a patient’s psychological and social background can be crucial for healthcare professionals.
• Assess the patient’s psychological and physical needs
A medical social worker’s primary responsibility is to evaluate the patient’s needs. This involves conversing with the patient, medical staff, nurses and relatives to gather a comprehensive case history. Healthcare social workers examine physical and mental health issues and learn about their client’s social, emotional and financial requirements.
Following their preliminary evaluation, social workers can devise an individualized strategy. The strategy involves organizing and facilitating communication between the patient’s family and other healthcare professionals and assisting them in locating long-term support services, such as counseling or physical therapy.
• Answer the questions of patients or their families
Family members and patients typically ask many questions when a loved one is recovering from an injury or in a hospital. The questions might range from “Do you think the treatment plan is effective?” to “When can we go home?”
Research has shown that informed patients not only handle their illness better but also experience less pain. For instance, cancer patients knowledgeable about their condition and the available therapies have a higher sense of self-worth and can better control their discomfort.
Social workers must ensure that patients comprehend their treatment plans and potential alternatives. They must coordinate with nurses and physicians to identify solutions and ease patients’ worries, as they will encounter patients in their most vulnerable situations.
• Provide psychological services
Social workers liaise with psychiatrists and psychologists to guarantee that their patients receive complete care that covers their physical and mental health needs. For instance, a social worker can work with a psychologist to create an intervention strategy for a depressed patient.
Additionally, social workers offer mental health evaluation and counseling services in the healthcare teams. Doctors can request that they evaluate a patient’s mental health rather than calling in a psychiatrist from outside the facility..
Social workerscan act as an essential initial bridge in linking patients to mental healthcare providers by determining whether proper psychiatric care is required. Additionally, they can offer immediate counseling to patients coping with a mental disease or handicap, their families, other patients and even staff members who need a calming presence.
• Promote patients’ rights
Social workers in the medical field primarily act as defenders of the rights of their patients. They collaborate with medical professionals to ensure that patients are respected and given the proper care at each stage of the healing process.
The process entails informing physicians and nurses of any challenges patients might face in adhering to treatment recommendations. It could also mean looking into cases of neglect or abuse of children and, if required, taking legal action.
• Case management paperwork
Nurses and social workers must coordinate to handle complex incidents involving multiple patient needs. Social workers may be required to work alongside governmental organizations, community organizations or other healthcare practitioners to guarantee that individuals receive the needed treatment and resources. They must also handle the necessary paperwork associated with each of their patients.
Throughout the treatment, they must track, assess and document the patient’s development, which helps to guarantee that the healing is proceeding as planned. They may deal with various documentation, such as discharge, treatment and insurance paperwork which requires coordination with other healthcare professionals to remain accurate.
Benefits of multidisciplinary collaboration
Multidisciplinary teams are made up of different medical specialists from various fields. The members of this team could include a social worker, psychiatrist or primary care physician. They work as a team to provide specific services to patients so that they may live an independent life.
Here are some of the benefits of establishing a multidisciplinary team:
• Boosts the standard of patient care
A multidisciplinary team comprises professionals with various levels of expertise and knowledge. The team of professionals can enhance the standard of care whether a patient receives care in an outpatient or inpatient facility.
Patients can obtain more specialized treatment for their health issues as each member is specialized in a separate field. Additionally, a multidisciplinary team can make patients feel more at ease during their medical care. The unit may have a person, such as a clinical social worker, whose responsibilities include informing the patient’s family about their condition and offering emotional assistance.
• Enables patients to establish personal objectives
Patients can establish clear yearly, monthly, weekly and daily goals for themselves with the help of a multidisciplinary team. The objectives enable the team to participate in the purposes and keep the patient and the team accountable for the intended result.
It also allows the team to promote family involvement in the goals, which may enhance care coordination and, in some cases, even shorten inpatient stays. Most patients make more significant strides with a team than without one, despite the possibility of having to handle personality conflicts.
• Accelerates the referral procedure
Multidisciplinary teams are frequently made up of experts in each discipline. That implies that a patient who needs a referral for a specific care plan already has access to the individuals who can facilitate it.
A social worker’s team can collaborate to have procedures authorized, delays reduced and treatments initiated to provide the patient the best chance of regaining or maintaining their health and wellbeing.
• Boosts employee satisfaction
Each employee can gain significantly from working in a multidisciplinary team. Working together as a unit in a hospital fosters interaction and a sense of community among specialists such as nutritionists, nurses, physicians and social workers. Working together rather than alone may bring these professionals greater happiness and an increased understanding of how their field of expertise might intersect with others.
Members of multidisciplinary teams might nevertheless feel autonomous because they each play a particular part in their group. They can always turn to other team members for advice and assistance as they formulate care plans and develop discharge plans.
• Enhances the coordination of services
Members of a multidisciplinary team must devote more time to their work, but the patient benefits from higher levels of efficiency. Each person receives a framework of uniformity since the treatments are managed together, which enhances treatment delivery. The communication in this framework eases service coordination, even when certain team members may be far from the patient.
Tips for effective collaboration
Things go differently than planned when combining individuals with diverse experiences and skills. It takes work and courteous interaction for a team to collaborate effectively. Sadly, attracting vibrant employees with diverse empirical backgrounds is one of the hardest things to accomplish.
So how can one achieve effective collaboration in multidisciplinary teams? Here are some tips for a successful team:
• Builds respect and trust among team members
Multidisciplinary teams are more inclined to have regular interactions among their members. It may benefit all team members to develop mutual respect and trust before committing to delivering treatment for patients.
They may agree to respect each member’s specialty and not meddle with that of the other members. The interdisciplinary team unit may also work to foster a supportive environment that values open communication and respects each team member’s unique skills.
• Establishes processes and procedures for administration and communication
Before providing patient treatment, multidisciplinary team members may gather to discuss the precise procedures to follow. Understanding one another’s roles can assist each team member to perform better.
Members might set expectations during the first sessions and discuss how individuals may participate effectively. The team’s defined norms for administration and engagement will serve as a guide in the event of future conflicts regarding how to move forward.
• Encourages patient advocacy that covers all aspects of care
Even though healthcare providers frequently concentrate on their area of expertise, they could notice a gap in one aspect of the state of a patient. For instance, a nurse might bring the patient’s blood pressure readings to the cardiologist if they remain high even after several months of visits. Healthcare providers can favorably impact an individual’s health if they raise issues professionally.
• Sets and prioritizes the team’s goals
A multidisciplinary team may gain from focusing on their team’s objectives when they deliver patient care. By setting them, team members can decide how to modify their care plans to meet patient-specific goals. These goals include promoting patients’ recovery and returning to their usual lifestyle.
The care team may consider some aspects, such as the patient’s initial need for care and any conditions the patient would have to satisfy before the end of their treatment. The multidisciplinary team may also spot obstacles that prevent a patient from improving and offering solutions.
• Enhances effective communication
Effective communication, and seeing that the team creates a conduit for it, is crucial. This may involve adopting understandable language to guarantee that, despite the groups differing areas of medical expertise, all medical professionals on a team can comprehend each other’s observations.
Medical personnel can converse respectfully with one another and engage in active listening by using good communication techniques, which also helps to ensure that everyone on the team is informed about the patient.
• Develops collaborative social work expertise
Social work is a team endeavor rather than an individual one. Working in interdisciplinary teams is necessary. Each person should consider it before choosing this career path, and be prepared to collaborate with others when necessary and occasionally learn or teach them.
It is a good idea to enroll in a Master of Social Work (MSW) from a reputable institution such as Keuka College today. The projected outlook means that jobs for MSW graduates should be more readily available throughout the next decade. The program offers some of the most diverse job opportunities as healthcare providers expand patient services and demand for healthcare social workers increases.
Challenges to multidisciplinary collaboration
When a team works together, things are sometimes rosy and chirpy. The team must overcome several obstacles and early difficulties in the real-world scenario to complete specific tasks. Here are some of these challenges:
• The provision of services is always under time pressure
There are two crucial factors for each individual working with a diverse team. In addition to accomplishing their services to the patient, they are also accountable for coordinating with the entire patient’s team.
They must react to any changes made to the care plan, occasionally including those that do not affect them. Although it is a collaborative process, some non-collaborative aspects also occur.
• The wide variation between backgrounds
Multidisciplinary teams perform better when members’ educational experiences and backgrounds are similar. The truth about modern units is that they consist of a diverse group of individuals, some of whom have just begun their professional careers and others nearing the end.
Additionally, different jobs occur on various timetables, making delivering services difficult. Another challenge involves a social worker and a psychiatrist only sometimes understanding what the other does.
• Effectiveness necessitates continuous collaboration
Multidisciplinary teams must schedule frequent meetings to maintain communication and teamwork within groups and to keep members in agreement. A lengthy team meeting may last two to three hours. That is a significant amount of time most members are compelled to sacrifice from their day.
• Reliant on the resources at hand
Multidisciplinary teams must use available resources near the patient, including human resources. Executing some of the team’s recommendations may be challenging. In that situation, the treatments with the highest priority would be carried out first, requiring the rest of the team to attend sessions even though they may not actively contribute to fulfilling the goals.
Multidisciplinary teams function most effectively when each participant carries out a specific task on the patient’s behalf. Constructing these positions requires complete access to information, including surveys, assessments and other distinctive data points. With this knowledge, the team’s decisions will maximize any prospective advantages that the patient might require.
Conclusion
Cooperation between social workers and other medical specialists demonstrates the significance of teamwork in medicine. Together, healthcare experts can give patients the finest treatment possible and support them in achieving improved health outcomes. Social workers and other healthcare professionals must continue cooperating and working together to guarantee they deliver high-quality treatment to patients.
