Social workers, nurses, or both: Who is primarily responsible for hospital discharge planning with older adults?

ABSTRACT

This study examines the profession primarily responsible for discharge planning in all hospitals serving older adults in Minnesota. Quantitative analyses determined that the majority of hospitals in Minnesota serving older adults are small, rural hospitals with critical access designations, are private nonprofit, and are affiliated with a health care system. Social workers are primarily responsible for discharge planning in half of the hospitals, nurses in a quarter and either a nurse/social worker team or both nurse and social worker separately in the remaining quarter. Multinomial logistic regression determined that in critical access hospitals nurses are more likely than social workers to be the profession primarily responsible for discharge planning.

KEYWORDS:

• Discharge planning
• hospital social work
• older adults

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Care Providers of Minnesota.