About Us

HealthCare Chaplaincy Network™ (HCCN), founded in 1961, is a global health care nonprofit organization that offers spiritual care-related information and resources, and professional chaplaincy services in hospitals, other health care settings, and online. Its mission is to advance the integration of spiritual care in health care through clinical practice, research and education in order to improve patient experience and satisfaction and to help people faced with illness and grief find comfort and meaning--whoever they are, whatever they believe, wherever they are.

Professional board-certified chaplains:

Are the spiritual care specialists on the health care team as doctors and nurses focus on caring for the body, and as the recognition grows that whole-person care encompasses spirit, mind, and body
Serve those who are ill, family and friend caregivers, and other health care professionals who deal every day with the stress of illness and loss
Are trained to help people to identify and draw upon their sources of spiritual strength – regardless of religion or beliefs. As one very experienced professional chaplain says, “In our encounters with people in distress, we walk into some dark places and help bring in light.”

Advanced Practice Chaplain Karen Pugliese explains in this brief video how a chaplain is a healer who cares for the human spirit for those in spiritual pain regardless of one's religion or beliefs.

HCCN Overview

Wall Street Journal

How we are creating the new world of spiritual care

Oncologist James L. Speyer, M.D., Professor of Medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center, discusses how to deliver whole-person care for patients with cancer.

The Rev. Gregory L. Johnson, Senior Advisor for Family Caregiving, Office of the CEO, EmblemHealth, discusses the importance of caring for the family caregiver.

Francis “Ken” Duane, CEO of Heritage Brands and North America Wholesale at PVH Corporation, one of the world’s largest apparel companies, tells how HCCN's professional health care chaplains have helped him and others heal.

T. Michael Long, past Board Chairman of HealthCare Chaplaincy Network, talks about the importance of professional spiritual and chaplaincy care in providing excellent health care and HCCN's contributions to the field.

Clinical Services

HCCN provides professional chaplaincy clinical services in leading health care institutions, including Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, NYU Langone Medical Center, Hospital for Special Surgery and St. Mary’s Center.

The first-of-its-kind online service

ChaplainsOnHand^® is the first-ever professional quality online service to provide spiritual comfort for people who are seriously ill and their caregivers – whoever they are, whatever they believe, wherever they are. It includes ChatWithAChaplain, which lets people in spiritual distress connect with a professional chaplain via phone, email or video chat.

An Educational Leader

Students consistently praise HCCN's Clinical Pastoral Education program, accredited by the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, for how well it trains them to provide compassionate spiritual care. The program includes on-site or online (CPE.org) academic study and clinical training.

HCCN is an innovator in online Professional Continuing Education, including fundamentals and advanced courses in spiritual care in palliative care.

HCCN publishes Caring for the Human Spirit^® magazine twice a year, with articles of interest to chaplains, nurses, social workers and other health care disciplines. The print version is available by free subscription, and it is posted online.

A Research Leader

HCCN has long been a leader in advancing research on the integration of spiritual care within health care.

HCCN holds an annual Caring for the Human Spirit^® conference, focusing on the integration of spiritual care in health care. This go-to conference features top experts and draws an international audience of chaplains, researchers, nurses, social workers and other disciplines. The first Caring for the Human Spirit^® conference (March 31-April 3, 2014) released the largest body of research on spiritual care in health care, presented the first empirical data on the role and effectiveness of chaplaincy care interventions, and launched the new field of interdisciplinary research in spiritual care in health care that would drive the research agenda for years to come.