Comments Requested From Clinical Social Workers On Elder Maltreatment Quality Measures

CLINICAL SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE UPDATE

Mirean Coleman, MSW, LICSW, CT
Senior Policy Associate

March 2008

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has contracted with Quality Insights of Pennsylvania (QI) to develop quality measures to improve the quality of health care services delivered to Medicare patients. Through QI, over seven measures have been developed for use by clinical social workers since 2007 including screening for depression, screening for cognitive development, and co-development of plan of care.

Currently, an Elder Maltreatment Screen measure set has been developed by QI and the American Psychological Association. The measure set addresses patients 65 years of age and older who have been screened for elder maltreatment and whether a follow-up plan is in place for patients who need it.

In addition to psychologists, the Elder Maltreatment Screen measure set is applicable to clinical social workers and is now available for public comment. NASW encourages clinical social workers who work with the geriatric population to provide comments to help determine whether these quality measures are suitable for use in social work practice. Clinical social workers may submit comments online at www.usqualitymeasures.org through April 10, 2008.