1st Edition

Clinical Data-Mining in Practice-Based Research Social Work in Hospital Settings

By Irwin Epstein, Susan Blumenfield Copyright 2002
    210 Pages
    by Routledge

    214 Pages
    by Routledge

    Design more effective social work programs with research data from your clinical files!

    A well-planned research program helps social workers provide consistent, effective services to their clients, but stretched budgets and tight schedules make it difficult to find the resources for data gathering. Clinical Data-Mining in Practice-Based Research shows how you can use the existing records already kept by every health-care institution as your primary data source. By analyzing documented clinical information, you can do groundbreaking research and custom-tailor programs to fit the specific needs of your department.

    Clinical Data-Mining in Practice-Based Research draws from the experiences of members of the Mount Sinai Department of Social Work staff. By analyzing case data, these professionals were able to identify biopsychosocial factors that affected social-health outcomes. These practice-based research strategies helped social work professionals see their own work more clearly and helped improve the quality of direct services, interventions, new programs, and case evaluations.

    Clinical Data-Mining in Practice-Based Research shows the benefits of practice-based research, including:

    • enhancing clinical and administrative functions
    • encouraging direct-service workers to become more reflective
    • fostering cooperation between social workers and other staff members
    • designing earlier, easier, and more effective interventions
    • contributing to continuing education for staff members
    • improving patient care and satisfaction

      The detailed discussions in this book will help you apply these techniques toward improving your own service. Clinical Data-Mining in Practice-Based Research offers fresh and exciting ideas that can be applied in small health-care agencies or giant medical centers. It will become a trusted reference for administrators, social workers, researchers, and educators in the field.

    • Foreword
    • Introduction: Promoting and Maintaining a Reflective Professional Staff in a Hospital-Based Social Work Department
    • Using Available Clinical Information in Practice-Based Research: Mining for Silver While Dreaming of Gold
    • Screening for Psychosocial Risk in an Urban Prenatal Clinic Population: A Retrospective Practice-Based Research Study
    • Psycho-Social Problems Faced by “Frequent Flyers” in a Pediatric Diabetes Unit
    • Mining Treatment Termination Data in an Adolescent Mental Health Service: A Quantitative Study
    • Social Work Practice with Pre- and Post-Liver Transplant Patients: A Retrospective Self Study
    • Dialysis Patient Characteristics and Outcomes: The Complexity of Social Work Practice with the End Stage Renal Disease Population
    • Comparing Social Work’s Role in Renal Dialysis in Israel and the United States: The Practice-Based Research Potential of Available Clinical Information
    • Mining Clinical Information in the Utilization of Social Services: Practitioners Inform Themselves
    • Creating Experimental Analogs with Available Clinical Information: Credible Alternatives to “Gold-Standard” Experiments?
    • Index
    • Reference Notes Included

    Biography

    Irwin Epstein, Susan Blumenfield