Healthcare Decision Making: What Every Social Worker Needs to Know

Despite the Patient Self-Determination Act of 1990, advance care planning remains poorly understood and often completed at the very end of life. Consequently, patients are left with making difficult health care decisions in highly stressful situations and in poor health. Similarly, designated healthcare decision makers often need to make these decisions with little or no knowledge of the patient’s wishes. This class will provide an overview of advance care planning as an essential component of quality patient care. Advance care planning documents, such as advance directives and POLST orders, will be discussed. Strategies on how to facilitate quality advance care planning conversations will be presented, and the role of the social worker in promoting advance care planning will be elaborated upon.

Christine Wilkins, Ph.D., LCSW, Advance Care Planning Program Manager, NYU Langone Health

Christine Wilkins directs the Advance Care Planning Program at NYU Langone Health (NYULH) that seeks to promote quality advance care planning and coordinated care that aligns with patients’ wishes. She is a Respecting Choices Advance Care Planning faculty and has trained numerous NYULH staff in this approach. She helped implement the New York State (NYS) electronic Medical Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (eMOLST) at NYULH that is used as a standard of care for individuals with serious illness and advanced frailty. She has published and presented widely on advance care planning in national and international conferences. Dr. Wilkins received her MSW degree from the University of Toronto, Canada, and her PhD in Clinical Social Work from New York University. She is the inaugural social work advisor on the national POLST program and member of the NYS executive MOLST board. She was recently elected a member at large for the Society for Social Work Leadership in Healthcare.

Our regular fees are listed below:

• Full Tuition - $60
• GSS Alumni - $50
• Current Field Instructor - $50
• Current Adjunct Faculty - $50
• SWHPN Member - $50
• 3+ members registering from one agency - $40 per registration
• Non-Fordham Current MSW or Social Work PhD Student - $40
• Veterans - $40
• Fordham Faculty and Staff - $40
• Current Fordham MSW or PhD Student - $30
• Fordham Alumni Palliative Care Fellow - $30
• Current Fordham Palliative Care Fellowship Field Instructor/Career Mentor - $30
• Current Fordham Palliative Care Fellow or Montefiore Fellow - $0

Continuing Education Hours

Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service is a provider of social work continuing education hours, as approved by the New York State Education Department Board for Social Work.

Completion of this class will result in the receipt of two (2) continuing education hours. CEHs are not awarded for partial completion of the class.

You will receive the Zoom link for joining the class a few days before the class. You will need a computer and a reliable WiFi connection. The computer may be a desktop or a laptop. It may be an Apple or Windows computer.

If you have never used Zoom before, you will likely be prompted to download an applet, which is a small program that allows Zoom to communicate with your computer. This is safe and you will need to do this to join the class.

It is NOT advised that you participate using a table (e.g,.an iPad) or a cellular phone. The software is not optimized for these devices.

Please plan to join the online class 15 minutes before the start time to be sure that you don’t have any problems connecting. We cannot provide technical support to you and refunds won’t be offered if you have technical problems. If you have any questions or concerns about this, please contact us at [email protected] at least a few days before the class.