Medical Social Work Community Analysis

The medical and medical social work community have both entered a time of change. Many times there is a blur of boundaries between the scope of practice and roles between primary care nurses stepping in and doing social work activities such as patient education and discharge planning. “Empirical evidence does not show that one group is more qualified then the other concerning discharge planning and case management” (Dziegielewski, 2013). Even given this role overlap, social workers are vital to the interdisciplinary medical team and must educate the medical community on their specific job descriptions and how they can be an asset to the overall patient care and budgetary bottom lines. Nurses and other medical support staff will continue to provide social work services in hospitals and medical centers unless this step is taken.
This step is vital for the survival in todays service delivery environment influenced greatly by the Affordable Care Act” (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2012). This step will alleviate much of the confusion for hospitals as to why they should hire medical social workers. Hepworth (2010), stated the single greatest factor that distinguishes the medical social worker from the critical providers i.e. nurses and physicians, is the long, uncontested professional stance of person-in-situation or person-in-environment. This stance remains our guiding light for practice and intervention (pg. ). A second major distinguishing factor for medical social work according to xxx ( ), is that medical social work can be viewed as the “bridge” that links the patient, medical team and environment (pg.