Articulating the Evidence Base for Effective Social Work Practices: Building a Database to Support a Geriatric Social Work Policy Agenda

SUMMARY

In an era that demands accountability and cost-effectiveness, health care and social service professionals are increasingly expected to demonstrate the effectiveness of their interventions and treatments. Social workers, specifically those serving the elderly, have been markedly slow in embracing the need to measure outcomes and produce evidence of their practices, which stymies efforts at advocacy and policy development for the profession. Using a modified systematic review method, the New York Academy of Medicine's (NYAM's) Center for Aging Policy created an evidence database comprising peer-reviewed journal articles on social work interventions and outcomes research on cost-effectiveness and other measures of effectiveness. The evidence database, though focused on care of the elderly, draws on research studies involving age groups across the lifespan. A key product of this initiative is a series of white papers on cost-effective interventions in areas such as care management. A work group of social work professionals and a team of NYAM staff with diverse expertise reviewed articles based on their content, key topics, and outcomes. This article describes the steps taken, from the conceptualization of the review process to the development and implementation of the Web-based interface for user access to the evidence database. Though originally conceived as a tool for supporting a policy agenda for the Center for Aging Policy, the evidence database is also a useful reference tool for social workers, policy makers, and others interested in quality of care for elderly.

KEYWORDS:

• Evidence based practice
• geriatric social work
• public policy
• outcomes research

Notes

The authors wish to acknowledge the contribution of Jeannine Melly, Karen Olson, Sarah Sisco, and Alissa Yarkony, who provided invaluable assistance in the development of the database.

¹ For more information about NYAM and SWLI, please visit www.nyam.org.

²The Cochrane Collaboration is an international nonprofit and independent organization dedicated to making up-to-date, accurate information about the effects of health care readily available worldwide. It produces and disseminates systematic reviews of health care interventions and promotes the search for evidence in the form of clinical trials and other studies of interventions. For more information, visit http://www.cochrane.org/index.htm. The international Campbell Collaboration (C2) is a nonprofit organization that aims to help people make well-informed decisions about the effects of interventions in the social, behavioral, and educational arenas. For more details, visit http://www.campbellcollaboration.org/index.asp.

³Members of the work group included Candyce S. Berger, PhD, School of Social Welfare; Robert P. Connolly, MSW, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services; Kristin Day, LCSW, VA Central Office; Mark de St. Aubin, LCSW, University of Utah; Edward Mullen, PhD, Columbia University; Enola Proctor, PhD, Washington Rosenfeld et al. 37 University in St. Louis; Victoria M. Rizzo, MSW, PhD, Columbia University; and Joan Zlotnik, PhD, Institute for Advancement of Social Work Research.

⁴For more information about the NYAM Library, see http://nyam.org/library/.