Addressing the need of elderly hospitalized patients for conservatorship: a systems approach.

As the need for effective, timely discharge planning increases, new methods are needed to deal with the problems encountered in petitioning for conservatorship and their impact upon discharge planning and length of stay. The role of social work in the resolution of these problems is often poorly defined. This paper reports on the efforts of social workers to modify two systems. On the first level, impediments inherent in the state system were addressed. On the second, the hospital's social work department played the primary role in developing the institution's system for obtaining conservatorship for patients unable to plan on their own behalf.