CHaSCI attends the SIREN 2025 National Research Meeting

From February 2-4, CHaSCI staff attended the SIREN 2025 National Research Meeting in San Diego, California. The conference brought together a diverse group of leaders and advocates in social care and health equity research for a dynamic, thought-provoking event with great opportunities for connection, collaboration, and learning.  

Reflections from the conference 

The conference theme, “Advancing the Science of Social Care,” grounded the conference in three main goals:  

  1. Sharing and examine recent research on social and medical care integration and alignment;  

  2. Identify and prioritize filling persistent research gaps in this field; and 

  3. Foster new collaborations to deepen effectiveness and implementation research, community-engaged research, and the translation of research to practice  

The agenda featured keynote presentations, interactive workshops, and panel discussions on the latest advancements in addressing the social determinants of health through policy and practice. Throughout the conference, speakers also addressed the potential challenges facing the social care field in the next four years of the Trump administration and discussed how research, collaboration, and innovative thinking can enable us to continue our important work in the face of these roadblocks.  

The closing plenary discussion was titled “A thousand flowers bloom? A discussion about social care policy & practice decisions,” emphasizing the way that new ideas and innovations in social care arise simultaneously from many different sources. The discussion featured a panel of experts to explore the way that real-life leaders of social care interventions and population health programs gather and act on the evidence of their interventions. The conversation summarized many of the themes from the conference overall, including: 

  • The importance of integrating public health and healthcare services, breaking down silos between programs, and ensuring funding is allocated effectively to address social determinants of health 

  • Insights on large-scale initiatives such as food support programs, community-based care models, and innovative funding strategies to improve outcomes for underserved populations 

  • The challenge of translating research into scalable, real-world solutions that maintain equity and effectiveness 

  • The importance of aligning social service interventions with healthcare policy.  

  • The need for community-driven solutions and sustainable funding models.  

  • The power of resilience, advocacy, and maintaining focus on long-term structural change as we face political and economic challenges 

CHaSCI’s poster session  

During the poster session, CHaSCI presented on our training, policy advocacy, and research efforts that expand access to social care and support the social care workforce. For anyone who missed it, here’s a brief summary of our poster presentation:  

  • Background: Addressing social risk factors through social care drives better health and health equity. However, in the United States the health care system struggles to integrate social care into its operation, and funding is often not aligned with system or community need. The Center for Health and Social Care Integration (CHaSCI) at RUSH University Medical Center (RUSH) addresses this care gap through training and policy advocacy to expand access to social care and improve the health and well-being of individuals, families, and communities. 

  • Training: CHaSCI runs several training activities for the social care workforce and employers: trainings in the CHaSCI Care Model, customized education and technical assistance, continuing education offerings, and core competency trainings in health and social care integration for CHWs and other interprofessional providers.  (You can learn more about the CHaSCI Care Model in our blog post, The CHaSCI Care Model 101!) 

  • Our work at RUSH: CHaSCI's training and advocacy activities are based in insights from practice at RUSH University Medical Center on the west side of Chicago. We integrate social workers and CHWs into health equity and quality improvement initiatives to bring high-quality social care to priority populations, using screening for social needs, social work intervention using the CHaSCI Care Model process, Medicare fee-for-service billing, and quality assurance using chart reviews and clinical supervision. This on-the-ground work at RUSH informs continuous development of the CHaSCI Care Model, complementary skill trainings, and policy advocacy activities. 

  • Preliminary Research on the CHaSCI Care Model: CHaSCI Care Model social workers are uniquely poised to address psychosocial needs that positively impact patient health status, satisfaction with care, and health outcomes, including:  

    • Reduced hospital admissions 

    • Reduced 30- and 60-day hospital readmissions  

    • Reduced emergency department visits 

    • Reduced depression symptoms and health risk scores 

    • Increased medication adherence, appointment attendance, and other patient-led illness care strategies 

  • Conclusions: CHaSCI improves and expands access to high-quality social care through training and policy initiatives. By training the social care workforce, CHaSCI empowers organizations to identify and intervene on the social needs of people experiencing acute and chronic health conditions; and through policy advocacy, CHaSCI promotes policies that support the social care workforce and their patients.  Preliminary research shows that SWs using the CHaSCI care model positively impact a variety of patient and systems outcomes. Optimizing SW and CHW collaboration is one way to maximize the impact of existing workforces to improve patient health. Attention to workforce development is needed to maximize the impact of social care teams on patient and system outcomes and sustain health and social care integration activities. 

Collaborate with us! 

Let’s work together to advance access to high-quality social care: 

  • Partner with us to implement & research the CHaSCI Care Model in different settings and populations 

  • Contribute to our coalition-based development & advocacy activities 

  • Help spread & evaluate our social work in healthcare continuing education certificate program 

  • Study dosage in social care assistance interventions  

  • Present your work on our SW Grand Rounds 

  • Study SW+CHW collaboration models 

  • Weigh in on a national research agenda for social work in healthcare workforce 

What else do you have in mind? We’d love to hear from you! Contact us at chasci@rush.edu to share your ideas, comments, questions, or requests to collaborate.  

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The Role of Primary Care & Social Determinants of Health 

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CHaSCI Care Model 101: Background and History