Interdisciplinary Team Roles and Challenges in Integrated Health Care Settings: Social Workers’ Perspectives

To improve patient health, health care systems are increasingly integrating services that address social needs into medical care. Social workers often catalyze this process, yet the roles and challenges of social workers in integrated health care settings are poorly understood. Using a qualitative phenomenological approach, we employed purposive sampling and conducted semi-structured interviews with twenty social workers who were employed on interdisciplinary teams within integrated health care settings. Three themes emerged: 1) the role of social workers and their unique presence in health care settings; 2) collaboration and the importance of communication for effective collaboration; and 3) the ethical differences among health professionals on integrated health care teams. With greater calls for integrated health care, especially to address patients’ unmet social and behavioral needs, the challenges and strategies identified in this paper can assist interdisciplinary teams with improving interprofessional teamwork, interdisciplinary training, and social, behavioral, and holistic care integration in medical settings.