The Newsletter of the Illinois Chapter

CHAPTER CONNECTIONS The newsletter of the Illinois Chapter, Society for Social Work Leadership in Healthcare

President: Tom Tynan, LCSW Editor: Nancy Brooks, LCSW Vol. November 2000 Web site: www.sswlhc.org

PRESIDENT’S PERSPECTIVE

Thanks to everyone who worked so hard to put together our annual educational conference at Allerton this year. I haven’t seen the evaluations yet, but I believe it was very well received. Thanks to Steve McGaffigan and to all the vendors that Steve recruited. Special thanks to Terri Drew and Dawn Moutray for volunteering their organizational skills.

At Allerton, we had a special open board meeting to brainstorm on ways to increase the attendance. There were a lot of creative ideas that were presented and we plan to discuss them at our December board meeting. Those of you who were unable to attend may have already received a survey form asking for feedback that will be useful for future meeting planning. If you haven’t done so already, please complete and return the survey form.

I had the opportunity recently to meet with Carol Goldbaum, NASW, Illinois Chapter President and Joel Rubin NASW, Executive Director, Illinois chapter. We discussed issues of common concern; declining membership and declining attendance at educational events. NASW is planning to host a consortium of social work organizations, like ours, sometime after the first of the year, to explore opportunities to work more closely together in areas such as political action and sharing information. Joel informed me that of the 7,000 NASW members in Illinois who had indicated their area of practice, over 400 listed health care. Currently, the NASW Illinois Chapter board does not have a health care liaison as it had in the past. This we hope to correct. Any volunteers? We plan to keep an open dialogue between our two organizations to benefit the members of both.

Just the day before I sat down and wrote this, I met with State Representative, Sara Feigenholz, Dr. Jean Blazer for DHS, case managers from the CMUs in Chicago at the encouragement of Barbara Passman, Senior Social Worker, for U of C Hospital. Representative Feigenholz is the State House liaison with DHS. Barbara Passman had requested this meeting to discuss her concerns related to the Nursing Home Prescreening process and its impact on her hospital and others as well. We had an excellent discussion of both the micro and macro issues related to Nursing Home Prescreening. Obviously, we didn’t change the system. We did, however, express our interest in participating in future meetings involving Illinois’ response to the Olmstead Decision. The Olmstead Decision, a ruling handed down last year by the U.S. Supreme Court, has broad implications for the allocation of Medicaid dollars for institutional and community-based services for the disabled. The Supreme Court’s decision affirmed that “unjustifiable institutionalization of a person with a disability, who with proper support can live in the community, is discrimination.” (See attached HCFA fact sheet.) AHCFA is urging states to strengthen community services. We all know of patients who were “forced” to go into nursing homes due to the lack of appropriate funding of in-home services. This is an opportunity for us to influence the direction Illinois takes. Expect to hear more about this in the future.

ALLERTON EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE

The annual conference was held September 18-19. Charles Robbins, DSW, was the keynote speaker. Dr. Robbins is an Associate Dean in the School of Social Welfare and Director of Social Work at University Hospital SUNY at Stony Brook. He presented on social work in the world of complementary and alternative medicine. This is a growing field with many opportunities for social workers. Linda Murphy Boston, Program Director for the Center for Mind/Body Medicine at St. John’s Hospital in Springfield did a workshop on the program she developed in this very traditional health care setting. On Tuesday Keith Neuber, LCSW, and president of I K.A.N. presented a dynamic and humorous motivational workshop. Feedback was extremely positive about the conference. Many thanks to everyone who worked so hard to make this year’s conference a success.

A special thanks to our sponsoring vendors:  Alden Care Centers  Vitas Hospice  Social Work PRN  Superior Ambulance  Vencor  Apria Healthcare  Extendedcare.com  Walgreens  Lifeline Emergency Response Systems  Manor Care  Nu Care Services  Care Centers  Health & Home Management  Dependicare The generous contributions from our sponsors make it possible to award scholarships to the conference. This year scholarships were awarded to Betty Nelson, Nancy Weiss-Hayes, Kathy Driscoll, Don Bensing, and Nancy Wolff.

ALLERTON 2001: Mark your calendars for next year. The 21st annual educational conference will be held at the Allerton Conference Center September 17-18, 2001.

2000 SOCIAL WORK LEADER OF THE YEAR AWARD

Margaret Wayne, Director of Social Service at Memorial Hospital in Belleville, has been named the Social Work Leader of the Year. Margaret has been active with the Southern District and the State Chapter for the past 11 years and has held numerous offices including district president. Her twenty-year career in medical social work has included teaching at St. Louis University School of Social Work and serving as Board President of the Women’s Crisis Center of Metro East.

Congratulations to Margaret on all her accomplishments and on the well- deserved recognition she has achieved.

DISTRICT HAPPENINGS

Southern District: St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Granite City received a $56,000 grant from the Daughters of Charity to continue funding the outpatient case management program for the second year. The first year was funded by a $9,800 grant from the Group Health Foundations. St. Anthony’s Health Center Social Work Department received a $35,000 grant from the IL Dept of Human Services to continue outreach for enrolling children in the KidCare Program. The first year was funded by a $9000 grant from the Center for Social Justice at St. Louis University. The district held a continuing education program on November 15 in Granite City entitled “Cultural Diversity and Ethical Issues”; Sr. Stephanie Turck presented it. Following the meeting, the district honored Margaret Wayne for being awarded the Social Work Leader of the Year award.

Chicago District: In October the Chicago district held its meeting jointly with the American Case Management Association. The president of the ACMA presented on “Independent Silos.” Northwest District: Martha Wright, Director of Social Services at Proctor Hospital presented a program on Cultural Diversity. She provided information on web sites about cultural diversity as it relates to healthcare. These web sites are included at the end of the newsletter. Northwest’s next meeting will be 1/16/01 at Cottage Hospital in Galesburg. Attendees are requested to bring policies and procedures concerning Continuum of Care and Patient Rights.

JCAHO NEWS

Effective January 1, there is a new standard in the “Continuum of Care” chapter and a revision to a standard in the “Patient Assessment” chapter of the CAMH. Standard CC.6.1.1 requires that patients and families be kept informed about the care process, especially when some level of continuing care is anticipated after discharge from the hospital. Standard PE.1.6 was changed to indicate that discharge planning is initiated early in the treatment process based on requirements of the care plan or other written guidelines. The revised standards are designed to give hospitals greater flexibility in determining when there is a need for discharge planning and allow for patient participation in the process by keeping the lines of communication open. Further information can be found on the JCAHO web site at www.jcaho.org.

UPCOMING MEETINGS

APRIL 2001 - SSWLHC 36th Annual Meeting/Educational Conference will be held at the Adam’s Mark Hotel, San Antonio, TX.

JULY 2001 - 3rd International Conference on Social Work in Health and Mental Health will take place in Tampere, Finland, For more information, visit their web site at www.congcreator.com.

ONCE A MONTH: Every second Wednesday, 8:30-9:30 PM SSWLHC ONLINE CHATS. Log on at www.sswlhc.org and click on the chat room link.

WEB SITES

The following are web sites with information about cultural diversity as it relates to health care:

University of Indiana – Transcultural and Multicultural health links website: www.lib.iun.Indiana.edu/trannurs.htm

Center for Crosscultural Health website: www.crosshealth.com

Diversity Rx-Online clearinghouse for strategies to meet the cultural needs of different ethnic groups seeking healthcare – website: www.diversityrx.org/ University of Washington Ethnomed website: www.healthlinks.Washington.edu/clinical/ethnomed/

Michigan State University – Minority health website: www.lib.msu.edu/health/hw/minority/

ATTACHMENTS

Assuring Access to Community Living for the Disabled (HCFA Fact Sheet)

Illinois Chapter Membership List