The value that social workers’ competencies add to health care: An integrative review

Abstract

Health and social care professionals' competencies have traditionally been separated because of the different aims of the two professions. These competencies need to be integrated, to make sure that seamless services are provided that meet the often complex needs of patients and clients in a coordinated and timely way. The aim of this integrative review was to identify, describe and synthetise previous studies on integrated competencies in health and social care. Electronic literature searches were carried out on the CINAHL, ProQuest, PsycInfo, PubMed, Scopus and SocIndex databases for peer-reviewed scientific papers that were published in English between 1 January 2007 and 31 December 2019. This identified 3,231 papers, after duplicates were removed, and 18 focused on the integration of social workers' competencies with health care. Other types of integration were not found. The value added by integrating social workers' competencies with health care focused on engaging working orientation, improving communication with family members, increasing understanding of service resources and mastering successful discharge procedures so that they met comprehensive, complex health and well-being needs. Social workers added value when they worked with multi-professional teams, but there were challenges to integrating competencies and these were related to professional collaboration and fragmented leadership. In future, more attention needs to be paid to diversifying and optimising the integration of professional health and social care competencies that meet clients' and patients' care and service needs. It is also vital to focus on developing the professional and leadership strategies that are needed to combine those competencies.

I can't believe they are dead. Death and mourning in the absence of goodbyes during the COVID‐19 pandemic

“…The role of psychologists and social workers is essential to accompany and inform families in these first moments and to foresee or at least detect signs of complicated bereavement. It is necessary to create teams that provide multidimensional support to patients and families (Kangasniemi et al., 2021) and that could be well‐led by social workers.…”

Preparing for the Trend of Aging in Place: Identifying Interprofessional Competencies for Integrated Care Professionals

“…The identified integrated care core competencies for local service providers are: developing new and quality health-and social-care services and delivering local services based on clients' complex needs. Community-based organizations are required to possess leadership and management skills [22] as well as provide appropriate direct health-and social-care services (e.g., rehabilitative exercises, nutrition consultation, chronic disease management) [37,38]. The findings indicate that when developing local service providers' integrated care core competencies, training needs to focus on strategies that identify the comprehensive unmet needs of individuals and improve service quality and the delivery process, based on the clients' satisfaction.…”

Characteristics of Multiprofessional and Client-Oriented Approach in Occupational Health Services: A Cross-Sectional Survey Among Occupational Health Professionals

“…32 Previous studies also emphasise that comprehensive consideration of the client's needs and utilisation of the skills of other professional groups are the most central elements of client-oriented multi-tasking skills. 33,34 The Occupational Health 2025 guidelines in Finland aim to increase the readiness of OHS to respond to the health and work ability challenges related to working life. 4 According to these development guidelines, client-oriented operations require that OHS professionals have the necessary skills to detect and assess the risks and health hazards caused by work.…”

“…Professional cooperation is an important component in client-oriented social and healthcare services. 33,35 The Government Decree (708/2013) on the principles of good occupational health practice defines multiprofessional and client-orientation as key features of OHS. 3 Accordingly, "Occupational health service must operate in a clientoriented, independent, ethical, confidential, multidisciplinary and multiprofessional manner".…”