The Intersection of Healthcare and Social Work: Strategies for Effective Collaboration

To people who have lived most of their lives outside these systems, social work and healthcare can feel unrelated. And yet even beyond their obvious disciplinary connections, the two professions are linked by a common element. Vulnerability. Both the social worker and the healthcare worker deal with people who for some reason cannot take care of themselves.

Sometimes this means taking care of a patient with a chronic condition. Other times it means working with a family who is facing permanent separation.

It is perhaps because both healthcare workers and social workers specialize in human vulnerability that the two careers often cross paths. In this article, we take a look at both concrete and abstract intersections between these careers. We will also take a look at strategies for how they can collaborate more successfully.

Intersection

First of all, it is important to understand that these careers actually intersect every day in the healthcare environment. There are social workers employed at hospitals to help connect patients with vital resources and generally serve as advocates.

They might help the patient understand their treatment options, assist with communication between the patient and their care providers and in certain cases, even the patient and their family members, while also ensuring that they understand their financing options.

Elderly people may also be connected with social workers to make sure that they are getting the social and healthcare-related services that they require.

This could involve helping to connect them with physicians. Managing their medications. Evaluating the safety of their home environment and other important services related to their health.

Social workers also help people with psychiatric challenges navigate everyday life while interacting with the healthcare system. This could involve people suffering from addiction or other conditions that make it hard for them to live normal lives.

All of this is to say that the connection between healthcare and social workers is well established.

There are also abstract relationships that warrant consideration.

Social Workers as Advocates

No matter what they are doing, social workers always serve as advocates for people on their caseloads.

Often this means helping connect them with essential healthcare services even when doing this is not directly in their job description.

Social workers interacting with people in low-income communities may be particularly focused on financial accessibility. They may advocate for universal insurance coverage or more affordable care.

Social workers with a caseload of senior citizens may be more concerned with physical accessibility. They might advocate for services that give people on their caseload access to transportation.

Social workers helping people with mental health concerns may advocate for public policies designed to reduce rates of addiction or provide better insurance coverage for psychiatric support.

Often this advocacy involves spreading awareness about problems and helping connect everyday citizens with solutions to community-wide problems.

In this way, all social workers play their part in influencing the healthcare system.

Working Together

Collaboration between healthcare and social workers can fall into different categories. In the hospital setting it means finding common ground in the form of shared responsibility.

Nurses, for example, are advocates for their patients in much the same way as social workers. Your job is to administer care strategies but it is also to respect the individual and make sure that their wishes are being reflected, both in how their symptoms are managed, and how they are dealt with in the hospital.

However, as hospital employees themselves, they are often put between a rock and a hard place. How much help can you give a patient who is uncomfortable with your care strategy when your salary is tied to administering said strategy?

In these contexts, social workers can be a secondary source of support, providing people on their caseload with a voice. As always, it is important to prioritize the patient. What are their pain points? What is causing them discomfort?

By identifying these factors, healthcare workers and social workers can collaborate effectively in the healthcare setting.

In the outside world, healthcare and social workers are often paired together by their passions. They use their first-hand knowledge of common patient pain points as a way to make informed recommendations while advocating for productive policies.

Communication Strategies

While social and healthcare workers are often united in cause, they approach their responsibilities through different lenses. Social workers may focus primarily on the emotional aspects of care. They are responding to what people on their caseload feel. They are not medical professionals. They do not necessarily possess a scientific understanding of what is happening.

Doctors and nurses operate in the exact opposite of that situation. They do care about their patients’ emotions, but their primary concern is helping them get better. The job is about leveraging science-based insights to produce the best possible medical outcome.

Best case scenario these interests intersect, or at least do not directly conflict with one another.

Sometimes, of course, they do.

Active listening is a great way to bridge communication misunderstandings. When both sides can approach conversations with patience and understanding they will have much more productive interactions.

At the end of the day, healthcare is about one person’s need for accessible care they can understand and approve of.

Social and healthcare workers are uniquely positioned to help facilitate that care— particularly when they work together.

Photo Credit

Image by fernando zhiminaicela from Pixabay

Guest Author Bio
Sarah Daren

With a Bachelor’s in Health Science along with an MBA, Sarah Daren has a wealth of knowledge within both the health and business sectors. Her expertise in scaling and identifying ways tech can improve the lives of others has led Sarah to be a consultant for a number of startup businesses, most prominently in the wellness industry, wearable technology and health education. She implements her health knowledge into every aspect of her life with a focus on making America a healthier and safer place for future generations to come.