Abstract
The cardiac transplant social worker assumes a complex role on a transplant team: assessor, fixer, ethical conscience of the team, resource expert, ambassador to other consultative teams, and is one of the central figures to the patient and family as they move through all phases of care. The function of the cardiac transplant social worker has evolved in similar parallel fashion as has cardiac transplantation itself. Once tasked with responsibilities that included supporting patients and their families while patients waited in hospital for organs to become available, social workers now work with patients and families who, for the most part, wait at home, often for years, on left ventricular assist devices (LVAD) as a prelude to transplant. The steps between listing and transplant have elongated as has the need for critical assessment tools and skills in an ever changing and revolutionary cardiac landscape. Social workers in cardiac transplant have been called upon to acquire different skill sets to incorporate the cataclysmic changes in cardiac care. Developing a psychosocial assessment tool is the foundation of performing a comprehensive, thorough, and detailed evaluation of the transplant candidate and LVAD candidate and should incorporate guidelines from UNOS, CMS, and JCAHO. Assessing health literacy is crucial to ascertaining a patient and family’s ability to understand, comply, and execute required care. Including the palliative care team at consistent intervals is imperative. Collective team agreement on absolute contraindications to listing and/or implanting is crucial to a shared vision of candidacy.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abel T (2015) Health literacy among young adults: a short survey tool for public health and health promotion research. Health Promot Int 30(3):725–735. https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/dat096. Last checked 5.9.2018
Bruce C (2017) Caregivers of patients with left ventricular assist devices possible impacts on patients’ mortality and interagency registry for mechanically assisted circulatory support–defined morbidity events. Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes 10:e002879. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCOUTCOMES.116.002879
Caplan A (2008) Organ transplantation. In: Crowley M (ed) From birth to death and bench to clinic: the Hastings Center bioethics briefing book for journalists, policymakers, and campaigns. The Hastings Center, Garrison, pp 129–132
CMS Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services March 30, 2007 Federal Register/Vol. 72, No. 61/Friday, March 30, 2007/Rules and Regulations
Dhital k (2017) Donation after circulatory death heart transplantation. Curr Opin Organ Transplant 22(3):189–197. https://doi.org/10.1097/MOT.0000000000000419
Duong T (2017) A new comprehensive short-form health literacy survey tool for patients in general. Science Direct 11(1):30–35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anr.2017.02.001
Gali K (2016) Smoking status at time of listing for a heart transplant predicts mortality on the waiting list. Prog Transplant 26(2):117–121. https://doi.org/10.1177/1526924816640687
Hosseini K (2013) And the mountains echoed. Riverhead, New York
Kalanithi P (2016) When breath becomes air. Random House, New York
Kitko LA (2013) Caring for a spouse with end-stage heart failure through implantation of a left ventricular assist device as destination therapy. Heart Lung 42(3):195–201. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrtlng.2012.10.004
Maldonado M (2012) The Stanford integrated psychosocial assessment for transplantation (SIPAT): a new tool for the psychosocial evaluation of pre-transplant candidates. Psychosomatics 53(2):123–132. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psym.2011.12.012
Morris R (2013) Patient’s desire for termination of VAD therapy should be challenged. J Cardiothorac Vasc Anesth 27:5 1048–5 1050. https://doi.org/10.1053/j.jvca.2013.06.013
National Institute of Health (2015) Drinking Levels Defined. https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/moderate-binge-drinking
Neyer J (2016) Marijuana and listing for heart transplant: a survey of transplant providers. Circ Heart Fail e002851:9. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCHEARTFAILURE.115.002851
NIH Publication No. 07-3769 National Institute on Alcohol and Alcoholism www.niaaa.nih.gov/guide
Petty M, Bauman L (2015) Psychosocial issues in ventricular assist device implantation and management. Journal of Thoracic Disease 7(12):2181–2187. https://doi.org/10.3978/j.issn.2072-1439.2015.09.10
Shaw D, Gardiner D (2014) Moral distance and distributive justice: how the increase in organ donation is helping us make better ethical decisions. J Anaesthesia 70:1–17. https://doi.org/10.1111/anae.12931
Stosell L (2012) Readability of patient education materials available at the point of care. J Gen Intern Med S27(9):1165–1170. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-012-2046-0
Tsarova K (2016) SIPAT scale may be valuable in psychosocial assessment of LVAD candidates. J Card Fail 22:S79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cardfail.2016.06.250
Twillman R (1993) The transplant evaluation rating scale: a revision of the psychosocial levels system for evaluating organ transplant candidates. Psychosomatics 34:144–153. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0033-3182(93)71905-2
UNOS Newsroom January 2017
Cohen C (2015) The role of palliative care in the ventricular assist device population. Case Western Reserve and University Hospitals
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Morris, E.D. (2019). Psychosocial Considerations of Heart Transplant: Keeping Apace with the Revolution in Cardiac Care. In: Bogar, L., Mountis, M. (eds) Contemporary Heart Transplantation. Organ and Tissue Transplantation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33280-2_5-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33280-2_5-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-33280-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-33280-2
eBook Packages: Springer Reference MedicineReference Module Medicine