There were significant increases in the use of palliative care for recently hospitalized veterans whose primary care team had additional social work staffing, according to the results of this study involving 43,200 veterans in the Department of Veterans Affairs health system. These findings suggest that social workers may increase access to and/or use of palliative care. Future work should assess the mechanism for this association and whether the increase in palliative care is associated with other health or health care outcomes.
Authors: Portia Y. Cornell, Ph.D., of the Providence Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Providence, Rhode Island, is the corresponding author.
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(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.49731)
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Journal
JAMA Network Open