Palliative Care Driven by Baby Boomers
Says Modern Healthcare

“The drive for hospitals to establish palliative care programs is buoyed by the growing number of aging baby boomers,” reported the influential newsweekly Modern Healthcare in a major story by author Jennifer Lubell in its May 31st issue.

Modern Healthcare said that many hospital systems “believe that a good palliative care program is a necessary investment that will help save them money down the road and, most important, improve the quality of care for their severely ill patients.”

That’s welcomed news for two reasons. First, professional board certified chaplains are an integral member of the hospital palliative care team. Second, HealthCare Chaplaincy has begun to work closely with our palliative medicine colleagues in the development of research, education, and clinical practice.

Alan Aviles, president and CEO of New York City Health and Hospitals Corp., defined palliative care as “a highly specialized medical service, based on the principles of comfort, support, hope and dignity.”

Modern Healthcare wrote, “The Center to Advance Palliative care defines this mode of treatment as a way to relieve the pain, symptoms and stress of serious illness with a goal of improving quality of life. Unlike hospice care, it can be provided at the same time as curative treatment, and it is not dependent on prognosis.”

Besides pain management, “patients also receive spiritual and emotional support from palliative care,” said Donald Schumacher, president and CEO of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.

“Hospitals are also realizing that social work and pastoral care are integral to comprehensive care of a severely ill patient,” Schumacher explained, “so that’s why these services are getting renewed support.”

“As hospitals treat more chronically ill patients, palliative care programs become an obvious solution, says Lyn Ceronsky, director for palliative care at Fairview Health Services, Minneapolis. New quality standards also support adoption of palliative care, Ceronsky says…The Joint Commission (which accredits health care organizations and programs) is also considering a certificate program in palliative care, Ceronsky says. ‘And there’s the National Quality Forum’s Preferred Practices for Palliative and Hospice Care Quality,’ voluntary clinical practice guidelines to encourage expansion of palliative care, she says.”

Diane Meier, director of the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) said that palliative care “addresses the fragmentation of the healthcare system and puts the focus back on communication with the patient and family. Hospitals today recognize that the cost in misery and unnecessary hospital stays of not providing this type of care is just too high.” Meier believes that palliative care will eventually become a more comprehensive benefit because new models of reimbursement won’t be successful without it.

Follow us on for the latest news about HealthCare Chaplaincy and the growing fields of palliative care and professional multifaith chaplaincy care.

New York Daily News Column “Faith in the City” Features the Rev. Florine Thompson

“The Rev. Florine Thompson’s congregation is constantly changing at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital,” writes the New York Daily News in a feature story headlined “Faith and healing for the sick.”

“We serve 6,000 patients, loved ones, staff, and volunteers a year,” she says. “Diverse by race, ethnicity, faiths, cultures, beliefs.”

Click here to read the full article.

Where Do You Find the Holy?

By the Rev. Jill Bowden, Director of Pastoral Care, Winthrop University Hospital

Do you sometimes find that you find the Holy in unlikely places? One of my favorite unlikely places is the movie, A Chorus Line. Maybe you remember the story of the girl who took an acting class and was belittled by her teacher for failing to “get it.” The class was supposed to pretend, to act, to learn to get in touch with their inner self – their inner bobsled, their inner sports-car, their inner ice-cream cone, their inner…something.

Morales, the girl in question, tried – she tried hard, but there was no spark, no answering inner voice, and no sense of being a bobsled. This, Morales explained by saying that she had no frame of reference for that reference – after all, there are no bobsleds in San Juan.

The teacher gave up on Morales – he said she might as well transfer to another school, that she had no ability, no talent.

Can you feel this? Have you been there? Someone wants you to have an experience of – something – let’s call it the Holy, an experience of God or Buddha or Krishna, or Allah, but you have no frame of reference, you don’t get it, and those in charge say that if you can’t do it their way, you had better just leave.

Morales said, “And I dug right down to the bottom of my soul to see what I had inside. I dug right down to the bottom of my soul and I tried, and I tried, I tried. But I felt nothing…” She felt nothing….and Morales thought she had failed.

The presence of the Holy comes to us personally, in ways we can each understand on a deeply unique level. There is no one way to find God in our lives. Each person has a unique spiritual sense, a sense of what gives life meaning and purpose.

Think about what gives your life meaning, what gives it purpose; think about what has kept you through life. A search for the Holy, by whatever name we call it, is a spiritual attempt to tie ourselves to something larger than our present situation. No one else’s life is an exact copy of anyone else’s life. This is true whether we are chaplains, Broadway dancers, teachers, or hospital patients, families of patients, or visitors.

We each need to find our own way to the Holy – to find our inner bobsled, our own inner peaceful place, or a hope or dream or a belief that keeps us going. Some of us find expression for our spiritual selves in a particular religious tradition, in the outward expression of worship with people who have similar beliefs, similar creeds, similar expressions of faith; some go further afield – and that ‘where’ is between you and your inner self; it is where you find your unique and beautiful connection to all that is.

One man told me that he found God in his family – in their steadfast love, their presence, their relationships and support of each other. For him, all that was beautiful and real at the center of his life was in his family. Another person, a young woman, said, “I don’t believe in anything I can’t see.” For her, the Holy is the reason for everything that she can see – and unattached to any belief system that is different from that. She finds God in the work of the hands of the doctors and the nurses, the physical therapist and her mother; people who help her to heal embody the Holy in this young person’s understanding of what Holy means at this time in her life.

Whatever you call it, there is a spiritual sense in each of us that reaches for meaning, for connection, in our lives. May you find your inner bobsled, may it help you reach right down to the center of yourself – and find meaning in your life.


Adapted from a sermon given at Winthrop University Hospital's Serenity Chapel & reprinted from PlainViews^®, HealthCare Chaplaincy's e-newsletter for chaplains and other spiritual care providers.