Including Spiritual Care in the Patient Experience

[A Former User]

Hello,

I am a Professional Health Care Chaplain and a new member of the PAN Community!

I am pleased to hear that PAN would like to include spiritual care in its mission of improving healthcare experiences for patients. The good news is that our profession is working hard to have a higher profile and stronger role in healthcare settings.

In Canada, Chaplains are now called Spiritual Health Practitioners (SPHs). The following are some gleanings about who we are, what we do, and how our services improve the patient healthcare experience.

Profession: Spiritual care is a Profession. Spiritual Health Practitioners have standardized formal education, must earn credentials, pay dues, have organizational and ethical accountability, and carry profession insurance just as any other health care provider. Many of us, but not all, are ordained congregational clergy.

Spirituality: When we speak of spirituality, we do not mean to suggest this is solely about religious belief, though for many it is strongly grounded there. Rather we look broadly to the values, hope and dreams, concerns and fears that collectively accompany an individual on a care journey.

Scope of Practice: The starting point, focus, and center of attention for the SPH is the individual person or patient. Anton Boisen, a founder of present day spiritual care training, refers to our patients as a "living human document". The SPH brings whatever s/he has learned from a variety of religious texts and teachings, from psychology education, from the patient's own background, and from the chaplain's own personhood, to help each person.

The help we provide is spiritual rather than practical, and thus differs from other healthcare providers such as social workers or nurses. The SPH represents, even to the non-religious patient, connection to a world that transcends time and place and history. This connection is especially calming in moments of suffering and loss, and comforting to those who are anticipating death.

You may not be aware but most hospital wards have a SPH who is part of the Interdisciplinary Team, a full partner with the doctors, nurses, dieticians, social workers, etc. We have our own in-hospital departments and any inpatient or family member can ask for or contact the Spiritual Care Department.

Finally, here is a link to an article, recently published, showing that patient visits by chaplains during the course of their hospital stay leads to increased scores on patient satisfaction surveys. It co-authored by one of my colleagues:

Relationship Between Chaplain Visits and Patient Satisfaction

Thank you PAN Community, I look forward to your thoughts and ideas in this discussion!

...Susan

[A Former User]

Susan, thanks for summarizing what spiritual care is. I came to understand that this is also a part of how we can maintain and restore health while on a working group at my hospital. One of the staff was late and apologized because she was consoling a colleague who had just lost a child patient. Even though it is a Catholic hospital, there was not a lot of support for staff -- and hence for patients and family.

I felt strongly that what was true in the corporate sector is true in a hospital. Treat your employees well and they will treat the customers well. We cannot stand by and let the staff become depleted and devalued or it will suck the life out of their commitment to care for us. So that's on the staff side.

On the patient/family side, many of us are at best agnostic and live our lives in a sort of obliviousness. And then something happens to remind us of our (or a loved one's) mortality. It is a fragile, scary moment and without the supports of a standard religion and its community, we are often on our own. We are not good at dealing with this.

How do we talk about this and raise the profile while doing our work as advisors? Thoughts anyone?

[A Former User]

Great to meet you Susan.

Most of what I know about health care chaplains I heard from Susan Palwick who used to write a blog that I followed. Her stories about the issues she faced were compelling.

I have not seen much evidence of chaplains in my visits to the hospital except at Grand River in Kitchener and at Mount Sinai in Toronto. I look forward to hearing more about the spiritual side. Certainly it is not an area that is emphasized in our health system

[A Former User]

Alies and Annette,

Thank you for sharing some of what your experiences are with Spiritual Care.

Spiritual Care services are available to inpatients, family members/supporters and staff. In fact, I do quite a bit of 1:1 counselling with staff. Sometimes the unit staff ask me to simply hang around the unit when it is a tough day for them.

We find that a large proportion of patients are not affiliated with a faith community. This seems especially so in Canada. I found most patients in the US had some faith-based roots, familiarity with who Chaplains are, and with prayer, and our services were heavily used.

That being said, independent of whether one has a faith group affiliation or background or not, we all have a spiritual nature that must be protected and nourished in order to thrive. For some their Source of meaning may be going out into Nature or playing music, for example.

Spiritual Care work is a caring for the spiritual health of a person. That is why accredited professional chaplaincy programs train for Spiritual Care and Multi-faith services. For example, I provide spiritual care to all patients, and if a patient requests a Jewish SPH I provide that faith-based care for them. We also ask clergy from the community to come to the hospital if their services are requested.

One reason I suspect that SPHs are not as present in much of Canada is that we have a public healthcare system. In the US, hospitals are a business. They compete for patient/insurance dollars either by direct pay or by insurance and government payouts.

Another reason we may seem invisible is that the other staff don't know enough about what we do and so don't refer families and patients to us as often as we'd like.

The research paper that shows how patient satisfaction is higher if a patient has been seen by a chaplain during their stay is below. This research encourages hospitals to hire chaplains in order to increase their ratings and income.

Right now, I think there is not enough incentive to have more Spiritual Care staff in a Canadian hospital. We are not considered an essential medical service and our services cannot be billed under insurance dollars the way a surgeon's or nurse's are.

As part of the mission to improve the healthcare patient experience, PAN may wish to research data that demonstrates how spiritual care services in Canadian hospitals will improve their bottom line.

Here is that article link:

Relationship Between Chaplain Visits and Patient Satisfaction

Best,

...Susan

[A Former User]

Thank you joining PAN and bringing this important part of my personal recovery😄 This is a particularly personal matter to me and when I share my experiences, I can't but feel blessed and get very emotional at times but it doesn't stop me from talking about it. Thanks again

[A Former User]

Here is an interesting blog by Carolyn Thomas on pain versus suffering.

I had not thought about these as being different before.

Sent via Groupsite Mobile.

[A Former User]

Alies, for some reason that link isn't clickable.

Sent via Groupsite Mobile.

[A Former User]

I fixed the link to Carolyn Thomas blog post on pain versus suffering. Sorry about that! Alies

[A Former User]

This is a great topic! Thanks for the link and getting it going.

I am away having some personal spiritual care time in the sun and mostly off the grid.

Will follow this thread when I come in for some shade!

Either way I'm back in March 5th,

Best,

...Susan