Social Services
Ste. Genevieve County Memorial Hospital offers all patients and their families access to a clinical social worker to provide frontline services to patients with conditions spanning the entire health care continuum.
Social workers help patients and their families understand a particular illness, work through the emotions of a diagnosis, and provide counseling about the decisions that need to be made. Social workers are also essential members of interdisciplinary hospital teams. Working in conjunction with doctors, nurses, and other health professionals, social workers sensitize other health care providers to the social and emotional aspects of a patient’s illness.
Case management skills are used to help patients and their families address and resolve the social, financial and psychological problems related to their health condition.
Services Include:
■ Initial screening and evaluation of patient and families
■ Helping patients and families understand the illness and treatment options, as well as consequences of various treatments or treatment refusal
■ Helping patients/families adjust to hospital admission; possible role changes; exploring emotional/social responses to illness and treatment
■ Educating patients on the roles of health care team members and assisting patients and families in communicating with one another and to members of health care team
■ Educating patients on the levels of health care entitlements; community resources; and advance directives
■ Facilitating decision making on behalf of patients and families
■ Employing crisis Intervention
■ Educating hospital staff on patient psychosocial issues
■ Promoting communication and collaboration among health care team members
■ Arranging for resources to finance medications, durable medical equipment, and other needed services
■ Ensuring communication and understanding about post-hospital care among patient, family and health care team members
■ Advocating for patient and family needs in all settings
■ Championing the health care rights of patients through advocacy at the policy level
Discharge Planning
Patients can get assistance from a social worker at the hospital to develop and implement an individualized plan to ensure care continues after one is discharged from the hospital. Whether you or your loved one needs long-term care placement, rehabilitation, hospice/palliative care, home health services, in-home services, and/or referral to mental health services, the social worker is here to help.
Community Resources
Ste. Genevieve County Memorial Hospital social workers also work in conjunction with local, state and federal agencies on services such as housing issues, legal issues, and financial assistance.