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We appreciate your interest and support for our mission to advance the profession of multifaith spiritual and pastoral care. Please feel free to send any questions or comments to comm@healthcarechaplaincy.org.
The Rev. Dr. Walter J. Smith, S.J.
President & CEO
In this e-newsletter:
HealthCare Chaplaincy Responds to Senate Finance Committee
Experts Endorse Chaplaincy’s New Enhanced Assisted Living Model
The Spiritual Crisis behind Eating Disorders
The Power of Two on the Board of Trustees
HealthCare Chaplaincy Responds to Senate Finance Committee
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Photo credit: Architect
of the Capitol |
The Senate Finance Committee invited public comment on the report it released on April 19th—"Transforming the Health Care Delivery System: Proposals to Improve Patient Care and Reduce Health Care Costs." HealthCare Chaplaincy submitted a response jointly with three other leading organizations—The George Washington Institute for Spirituality & Health, the Association of Professional Chaplains, and the City of Hope National Medical Center.
The response says, "The palliative care model and its emphasis on interdisciplinary teams, and patient-centered care (including the recognition of spiritual needs), provides a powerful model which can serve to address many of the health care policy goals set forth in the Senate’s report on health care."
It recommends:
1. Palliative Care be included in the health care reform legislation as a recommended model for delivering chronic care and managing chronic care patients during acute care admissions and after discharge from acute care settings. Palliative care or home-based teams would coordinate care for the physical, emotional, social, and spiritual aspects of the patient’s care and would include professionals qualified in each area.
2. Palliative care must include attention to spiritual, religious, and existential aspects of care as consistent with the National Consensus Project for Palliative Care Guidelines and National Quality Forum for Preferred Practices and that care should be provided by the interdisciplinary health care professionals including a board certified chaplain.
3. Demonstration project to test the effectiveness of interdisciplinary teams with palliative care training for chronically ill patients in acute care settings with the goal of producing more coordinated, lower cost, and higher quality care with reduced readmissions. The teams would include a physician, a nurse, a case manager, and a board certified chaplain. Spiritual issues of healthcare professionals should be attended to as a way of improving workplace stress management and team cohesiveness.
4. Demonstration projects to test the effectiveness of interdisciplinary teams with palliative care training to manage chronic patients at home. The goal would be to manage all aspects of the patient and family needs in such a way that readmission was delayed or avoided.
The entire response is at http://www.gwish.org/
Experts Endorse Chaplaincy’s New Enhanced Assisted Living Model
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| On April 22nd, HealthCare Chaplaincy joined with AARP and International Longevity Center to lead a forum on the role of quality assisted living in the long term care continuum. |
On April 22nd, HealthCare Chaplaincy joined with AARP and International Longevity Center to lead a forum on the role of quality assisted living in the long term care continuum.
Attending were more than 30 thought leaders from the public, nonprofit and philanthropic sectors, including representatives from AARP, New York State government, United Hospital fund, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Milbank Memorial Fund, John A. Hartford Foundation, Visiting Nurse Service, Village Center for Care and the Council of Senior Centers and Services.
New York State Department of Health Deputy Commissioner Mark Kissinger predicted that the future of long term care lies with residential settings that are more flexible than traditional nursing homes. He said the recently passed State Budget Bill would decertify 6,000 nursing home beds and replace them with 6,000 Medicaid-supported assisted living units. Deputy Commissioner Kissinger encouraged the development of innovative care models that meet consumer needs better.
Rick Moody, AARP’s Director of Academic Affairs, said that Chaplaincy’s model for an enhanced living residence was innovative and “on the cusp of something that needs to be done.”
The Rev. Dr. Walter J. Smith, SJ, Chaplaincy President and CEO, described the model: “As many people age, they become detached from the social capital that they have been building over their lifetimes. The residence will provide spirit-centered care for persons with chronic progressive illnesses who cannot or choose not to live at home, but want to live in a community setting.”
Ruth Finkelstein, Vice President for Health Policy at The New York Academy of Medicine, said that from talking with older adults she has learned “the importance of social connectedness and the centrality of community to well being.”
David Gould, Senior Vice President of the United Hospital Fund, emphasized the need to incorporate assisted living within the long term care continuum. He said that the current “silos” of various long term care options make it difficult for consumers to understand what services are available and to access those they need.
Dan Fox, Chair Emeritus of the Milbank Memorial Fund, observed that end of life care should be part of proper disease management and queried whether cost savings created with better end of life care could support the country’s long term care budget.
International Longevity Center President Robert Butler, MD, a leading gerontologist, psychiatrist and Pulitzer-Prize winning author, noted that quality end of life care is important as public policy and for the economy. He cited evidence from the recent DAVOS Economic Forum that longevity correlates with a country’s economic health.
The Spiritual Crisis behind Eating Disorders
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| Sarah Weinberger-Litman, Ph.D., Templeton Fellow at HealthCare Chaplaincy |
For many years people viewed alcohol and drug abuse as a moral failing and behavior that someone could stop if they just said no.
Today the medical profession recognizes that substance abuse is a self-destructive, complex disorder that is both preventable and treatable. Treatment can encompass body, mind, and spirit.
Similarly misunderstood and similarly stigmatized are eating disorders.
“The health care field traditionally treats eating disorders as psychological disorders with physical consequences. But spiritual factors can also be very influential,” says health psychologist Dr. Sarah Weinberger-Litman, a faculty member of HealthCare Chaplaincy’s Spears Research Institute and a Templeton Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow.
She adds, “We’ve learned through research that lack of meaning in one’s life and a spiritual void can coincide with one’s poor self-image and poor sense of self-esteem. In fact, eating disorders can replace religion.”
The scientific examination of the relationship between spiritual care and health care has brought Dr. Weinberger-Litman to HealthCare Chaplaincy. In particular she has found that Jewish women who internalize their religious values were less likely to exhibit eating disorder symptoms than those who engage in religious practice for its social value.
Dr. Weinberger-Litman says that parents have more influence than they think in helping their child build a positive image of her (and in more cases than expected – his) body. She urges parents to get help for their child if they suspect a problem exists.
Alongside her scientific research work at HealthCare Chaplaincy, she is associate producer of a new documentary film on eating disorders among women. It features prominent clinicians and researchers in the field as well as community leaders and individuals who have struggled with eating disorders.
While the film focuses on the Orthodox Jewish community, it speaks to a much broader audience, presenting insights and information that transcend ethnic, religious and cultural groups.
You can see “Hungry to be Heard” at 7 pm on Wednesday, June 17th, at The Jewish Community Center in Manhattan, 334 Amsterdam Avenue (at 76th Street).
The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with Dr. Weinberger-Litman, psychologist Dr. Esther Altmann, and the film’s executive producer Elisheva Diamond. Also, Aliza Starashefsky will present her own experience with and recovery from an eating disorder.
HealthCare Chaplaincy, under the guidance of Rabbi Charles Sheer, HealthCare Chaplaincy’s Director of the Department of Studies in Jewish Pastoral Care, and the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan are sponsoring the film screening and forum. This screening at the Jewish Community Center is part of a new outreach program by the Department to bring issues of concern to the broader Jewish community. The first community forum, which was on organ donation, was held at UJA-Federation in February.
The Power of Two on the Board of Trustees
Reflections from Bill and Maria Spears – husband and wife Board members
BILL: Maria and I are both drawn to HealthCare Chaplaincy by the common experience of having been widowed, and losing our spouses after long, happy marriages.
For me, as one engaged with Chaplaincy before my wife became ill, and during her illness, the chaplains were a great source of strength for her, for me, and for the family, and materially helped me get on with my life.
Contrast that with Maria’s experience, where her husband was ill for a long period of time, and she had no help from chaplains.
MARIA: When I first found out that my late husband had liver cancer, I had no one to talk to. He didn’t believe in organized religion. And though I was affiliated with the Greek Orthodox Church, I didn’t know anyone who could help. I was all by myself. My daughter was in college. It was a very difficult period. It would have been great to have had a chaplain to lean on.
BILL: Having experienced chaplaincy directly I can attest that there’s a great difference in the capability of one caregiver over another and that education and field work can prepare a chaplain to do his work effectively. Contrast that with the way that medical schools prepare doctors often ignoring questions of spirituality.
MARIA: Chaplains are better prepared to deal with the personal aspect of a patient’s life, as opposed to just the clinical aspect. That’s particularly true because chaplains are so broadly educated. They participate in ethical decision-making with patients and loved ones, and serve as valued counselors and supporters to nurses and physicians as they address complex medical crises.
BILL: Personally I feel that the issues surrounding chaplaincy can have a material, positive bearing on the whole health care situation in the United States.
MARIA: If you have a positive outlook and if you’re helped to face something realistically but with hope, you have a better chance of surviving.
BILL: It’s great to be on the Chaplaincy board with Maria, because we can take Chaplaincy’s issues home with us. Our involvement goes well beyond Board meetings.
MARIA: We find ourselves talking about some aspect of the Chaplaincy’s work almost every day. Bill and I are both on the Advancement Committee and I’m on the Real Estate Committee as well. It’s much more enjoyable to work on these projects together.
BILL: I think we really multiply our effectiveness by having a sounding board in each other. Usually when you go home from Board meetings you’re pretty much wrapped up in your own thoughts. Maria and I can review things together. It makes you more involved and productive.
MARIA: Another thing which is very important is that today’s chaplains are not the local volunteer priest or minister or rabbi who stops by the neighborhood hospital, but rather are educated professionals who are Board Certified Chaplains.
BILL: I couldn’t agree more. In the 20 years that I’ve been involved with HealthCare Chaplaincy, a lot of progress has been made. Students today who are taking Clinical Pastoral Education are on the whole much better educated and are from the seminaries and from graduate education programs as opposed to the old days when many were volunteers.
I think one of the exceptional aspects of HealthCare Chaplaincy is that there is a research function and an education function and they come together.
MARIA: What Bill and I hope is that HealthCare Chaplaincy continues to expand its research and educational programs because Chaplaincy can have an important long term effect on the way health care issues are handled in this country.
For more information, write to comm@healthcarechaplaincy.org.
The not-for-profit HealthCare Chaplaincy applies the discipline of professional spiritual care to improve outcomes within the science and business of health care. Since its founding in 1961, it has helped more than 4.5 million people. It is the world’s largest multi-faith organization of its kind and leads the profession in research, higher education, clinical practice, and consulting. Its Board Certified Chaplains give personalized spiritual and emotional support to patients, families and health care institution staff of all faiths or no faith; they are trusted advisors as members of the professional health care team.
For more information, please visit www.HealthCareChaplaincy.org
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