Social Work in Health Care in 2025: The Landscape and Paths of Transformation

Abstract

Social work in health care will, over the next 25 years, be transformed in concert with a complex and rapidly changing healthcare landscape and critical advances in behavioral and social science. Professional practice, research and education will be shaped by evolving patterns of health and illness, changing population demographics, developments in medicine, behavioral and social science, technology innovation and applications, and healthcare delivery cost and market forces. The profession’s practice, research and educational communities must take actions now to guide the necessary transformation of social work in health care and, in the process, significantly influence the delivery of behavioral and psychosocial health care.