Clinical Social Services Coordinator

DEPARTMENT: SWM GERO PSYCH UNIT

F ACILITY: Southwell Medical

WORK TYPE: Full Time

S HIFT: Daytime

Under the direction of the Director of Behavioral Health Service Line, the Clinical Social Services Coordinator is responsible for coordinating and supporting the delivery of social services for patients within the behavioral health service line. This role assists in ensuring patients and their families receive appropriate psychosocial support, discharge planning assistance, and connection to community resources. The Clinical Social Services Coordinator works collaboratively with interdisciplinary teams to assess patient needs, facilitate care coordination, and support continuity of care. This position also assists with care planning, patient advocacy, and resource management to promote positive patient outcomes and support the overall goals of the behavioral health program. The Clinical Social Services Coordinator demonstrates leadership through mentorship, cross-training, and ongoing professional development to strengthen team performance and support service excellence. The role also assists in promoting efficient departmental operations by managing resources responsibly, promptly reporting equipment or operational concerns, and utilizing effective time management strategies to meet departmental goals.

* Leads and coordinates the provision of social services to patients, families and significant others to enable them to deal with the impact of illness on individual family functioning and to achieve maximum benefits from healthcare services.

• Develops, implements and evaluates programs to assist patients and their families with the social and psychological factors of illness.
• Promotes a culture of patient safety and reduces the likelihood of medical/health care errors.
• Collaborates with physicians, nursing staff, and interdisciplinary leadership teams to develop, implement, and monitor comprehensive resident care plans.
• Directs and participates in the development and implementation of social services to facilitate the continuity of care and the provision of effective resident and family support services.
• Participates with nursing in arrangements for transfer of patients to other floors or rooms.
• Leads multidisciplinary treatment team and care conferences, providing leadership in addressing psychosocial needs and discharge planning.
• Assists in effectively maintaining all required records for the Social Services Department. Demonstrates good organizational skills and assists leadership with auditing.
• Demonstrates effectiveness in directing the performance improvement activities of the Social Services Department to promote the maintenance of high quality patient care.
• Demonstrates good communication skills by interacting with patients, families and peers in a friendly and sympathetic manner, projecting in both telephones and personal contacts an image which reflects the mission of the organization.
• Documents psychosocial assessments and interventions, group and individual therapy notes, interdisciplinary treatment plans and other required documentation according to policy and procedure.
• Maintains the delivery of patient care with the Social Services Department to comply with established facility, state, and Joint Commission resident care guidelines and standards.
• Demonstrates leadership through mentorship, cross-training, and ongoing professional development to enhance team performance and service excellence.
• Manages departmental resources responsibly, reporting equipment issues promptly to maintain operational efficiency and safety.
• Utilizes effective time management strategies to meet departmental goals.
• Keeps abreast of pertinent federal, and state regulations and laws and Tift Regional Health System, Inc. (“TRHS”) policies as they presently exist and as they change or are modified.
• Understands and adheres to: TRHS’ compliance standards as they appear in TRHS’s Corporate Compliance Policy, Code of Conduct and Conflict of Interest Policy; and HIPAA and TRHS policies regarding privacy and security of protected health information.
• Demonstrates the ability to perform tasks that meet the age-specific requirements of the persons, patients, vendors, and staff that the employee is charged to interact with as required by the position.
• Offers suggestions on ways to improve operations of department and reduce costs.
• Attends all mandatory education programs.
• Improves self-knowledge through voluntarily attending continuing education/certification classes.
• Maintains required competency levels as identified in written exams, skills checklists, skills labs, annual safety and health requirements as well as service excellence education hours requirements.
• Cross-trains in order to better assist co-workers and to provide maximum efficiency in the department.
• Volunteers/participates on hospital committees, functions, and department projects.
• Manages resources effectively.
• Reports equipment in need of repair in order to extend life of equipment and removes malfunctioning equipment out of service with timely reporting to the appropriate personnel.
• Makes good use of time so as to not create needless overtime.
  

* Master's Degree in Psychology