Social Work Interventions and Emergency Room Utilization

Emergency Room (ER) resources are a valuable commodity that are often misused as a point of care into the health system. Families who have no medical home and psychosocial needs frequent the ER on a regular basis to access care and necessary resources. Primary care and psychosocial ER utilization is costly and inefficient. Reducing avoidable visits is an important health system goal that must be balanced with the desire to deliver quality care to every family in a fiscally responsible manner that promotes long term health and wellness. In pediatrics, the first step will be to better understand the frequent user population, the reasons for social worker consultations and the resultant interventions to determine through a retrospective chart review if social support provided to a patient and family during an ER visit decreased the likelihood of returning to the ER within two months. A case-control study compared patients aged 0-17 who had social work interventions with patients aged 0-17 who did not have any social work intervention. Psychosocial variables and barriers to health outcomes will be identified and correlated with ER utilization. These efforts will lay the groundwork for the future development of emergency room predictability and preemptive strategies to mitigate misutilization.