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3 Keys to Hospice Social Worker Recruitment and Retention

Hospice News

Three important considerations can help hospices recruit and retain social workers — a respectful workplace culture, reasonable workloads and continuing education opportunities. Workforce shortages remain the industry’s most damaging headwind, and that includes social workers. for nurses, the report indicated.

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VA Study Finds 95% Increase in Palliative Care Utilization When Patients Have Access to Social Workers

Hospice News

Patients are more likely to receive palliative care if they can access social workers through their primary care providers, Veterans Health Administration (VA) research has found. These findings suggest that social workers may increase access to and/or use of palliative care.”.

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Social Workers as Leaders on Palliative Care Teams: A Podcast with Barbara Jones

GeriPal

In day-to-day practice, It’s hard to imagine providing excellent hospice or palliative care services without access to a team social worker. But are we really taking full advantage of ALL social workers have to offer our field? I don’t know if this person was a social worker or not. Barbara: Yay.

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The Art of Servicing Others: Celebrating Hospice Social Workers.

Hospice 101

March is Social Workers Appreciation Month! I wanted to take a moment to especially recognize and honor a specific group of Social Workers that make an enormous difference in the end-of-life journey: Our Hospice Social Workers! Hospice Social Workers Make a Difference.

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Social Workers Leaving Hospice, Health Care in Record Numbers

Hospice News

Hospice have lost social worker employees at a faster rate than any health care setting in the care continuum. . Social workers have left the health care field at record-high rates during the pandemic, according to data from the Peterson-Kaiser Family Foundation Health System Tracker.

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Unionized Hospice Workers Reach Agreement with Providence Health System Amid Growing Trend

Hospice News

The Providence hospice workers include 130 registered nurses, social workers, and other staff who joined the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) in January 2023. This is the latest in a series of unionizations among hospice and palliative care workers, particularly in California and Oregon.

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Hospices Stepping Up Performance on Visits-in-Last-Days-of-Life Measure

Hospice News

The number of registered nurse and social worker visits during a patient’s final week is one of the seven quality measures that CMS uses to evaluate providers. Social worker visits in the last days of life also rose to 9% in 2021, up from 7% in 2020. In 2019, for example, the percentage was 66%.