High-quality patient-centered palliative care: interprofessional team members’ perceptions of social workers’ roles and contribution

ABSTRACT

A core tenet of interprofessional collaborative practice (IPCP) is that efficient and effective teams are critical for the delivery of high-quality, patient-centered care. Although palliative care has a history of excellent care, increasing demands and larger patient loads are challenging teams to adapt and strengthen team functioning in hospital settings. The purpose of this qualitative study was to better understand the IPCP contributions of advanced palliative social workers (PSWs) through the eyes of their colleagues. Twenty-four interprofessional palliative care (IPPC) team members from other professions (i.e. nurse practitioners, physicians, physician assistants) from 16 hospitals across the U.S. participated in 20-minute semi-structured interviews. The Patient-Centered Clinical Method (PCCM) was used as a conceptual model to aid in the interpretation of the data. This model illuminated the centrality of PSWs’ role in building and sustaining a therapeutic alliance between the patient and the IPPC team, through assessing and promoting care that centers the patient’s experience with illness, creating space to initiate, process and revisit difficult healthcare conversations and helping to modulate the pace and intensity of emotionally laden discussions. PSWs also support the therapeutic relationship with the IPPC team by providing continuity and connection across and during the hospital experience and supporting the well-being of the IPPC team. This study offers novel insights into how PSWs contribute to patient-centered IPPC and furthers the articulation of the role of PSWs in hospital settings.

KEYWORDS:

• Collaborative practice
• end-of-life
• hospital care
• interdisciplinary team
• serious illness

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/13561820.2023.2238783

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Arden O’Donnell

Arden O’Donnell, is a PhD student at Boston University and a palliative social work researcher at Mass General Brigham Hospital. Her expertise is in interprofessional education and palliative social work.

Judith Gonyea

Judith G. Gonyea, is a Professor at the Boston University (BU) School of Social Work and a Faculty Affiliate of the BU Center for Innovation in Social Sciences (CISS) and Center for Innovation in Social Work and Health (CISWH). Her research is centered on historically marginalized and disadvantaged older populations with the goal of advancing health equity in later life.

Taylor Wensley

Taylor Wensley, is Public Health Social Worker and aspiring apiarist. Her research experience centers around aging and gerontology, palliative care, and community engagement.

Megan Nizza

Megan Nizza, is a Doctoral Student at Boston University School of Social Work. Her experience is in gerontological social work and elder mistreatment.