Care coordination in pediatric health care settings: the critical role of social work

Background: Care coordination (CC) is integral to improving health care quality. Research on CC by health care social workers (HSWs) in pediatric health care settings is limited. This paper aims to operationalize and quantify CC functions fulfilled by HSWs in one large urban pediatric hospital. Methods: Twenty-three discrete CC tasks across four categories of assessment, meetings, consultations, and facilitation were identified and operationalized by an HSW CC committee through a consensus-driven decision-making process. Over three workdays, 22 HSWs from 18 unique health care clinic settings recorded total time spent daily on each CC activity. Results: Participants spent an average of 78.3% of a typical workday on CC activities. Regardless of setting, participants completed tasks across all general activity categories of assessment, meetings, consults, and facilitation. The most time-consuming CC tasks included biopsychosocial assessment, medical team consultations, multidisciplinary care plan facilitation, and family meetings. Tasks related to child protection were among the least frequently completed. Conclusion: CC is a cornerstone of HSW service provision in pediatric health care settings. HSWs can be vital collaborators in developing innovative transdisciplinary CC models.