Jim Parker of Hospice News shared information about our recently-announced Social Work Fellowship program. Check out an excerpt of the article below or view the full piece here.

"As the hospice and palliative care workforce dwindles, some stakeholders are hard at work to develop career paths for staff in related disciplines, including social work.

The workforce solutions provider OpusVi is collaborating with CommonSpirit Health on a new Social Work Fellowship Program that will include training in hospice and palliative care. The program is designed to support social workers in the early years of working in the field and develop smooth pathways to licensure.

“Everyone talks about the workforce shortage in health care, and a lot of that results in difficulties and continuity of care, which can be catastrophic for patients. People end up back in the hospital,” Julie DeLoia, chief academic officer at OpusVi, told Hospice News. ”Social work is also struggling with finding enough folks and getting them interested in the medical field. So it was very important to help support them as they transition into the medical field. The end result is a better, more supportive patient and family experience.”

Social workers have been leaving the health care industry in record numbers, including those who work in hospice care.

COVID-19 didn’t help. As of October 2021, attrition rates for social workers were 35% higher than they were pre-pandemic, according to data from the Peterson-Kaiser Family Foundation Health System Tracker.

The new fellowship is designed to staunch those losses by fostering career growth, improving competency and providing education on diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as training on social determinants of health and the continuity of care."

To read the full article from Jim Parker in Hospice News, click here.