Blog

Jennifer Bires: Better Outcomes Start with Whole-Person Care

Jennifer Bires/LinkedIn

Apr 21, 2025, 22:48

Jennifer Bires: Better Outcomes Start with Whole-Person Care

Jennifer Bires, Executive Director of Life with Cancer and Patient Experience for the Inova Schar Cancer Institute, shared a post on LinkedIn:

“Better Outcomes Start with Whole-Person Care – and Social Workers Are Central to that. Especially when it comes to the stem cell transplant experience. I’m incredibly proud to congratulate Darah Curran and the rest of the authors for their recent publication:

“Integrating Social Work Throughout the Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation Trajectory to Improve Patient and Caregiver Outcomes.”

This work highlights something we know deeply at Inova Health Peterson Life with Cancer – that transplant is one of the most physically and emotionally demanding parts of a cancer journey. Patients and caregivers face overwhelming uncertainty, stress, and life disruption. Social workers play a pivotal role in navigating that complexity.

A few takeaways I hope all clinicians and healthcare leaders reflect on:

Social workers reduce the burden on medical teams by proactively managing psychosocial needs.
Their continued presence across the transplant trajectory creates meaningful, organic opportunities to intervene and improve outcomes.
Building institutional capacity for psychosocial care isn’t a luxury – It’s good care.

The article clearly illustrates the critical need for more comprehensive, integrated psychosocial care. Congrats again, Darah – your leadership and voice continue to make a difference. If you’re leading a transplant or cancer care program: Is social work integrated at every step? If not – what’s stopping you?”