Catholic Health World - July 2023

Vision statement compels CHA to be force for change

By JULIE MINDA

CHA debuted its first vision statement at the 2023 Catholic Health Assembly.

Developed through a collaborative process that began last fall, the statement is: “We will empower bold change to elevate human flourishing.”

Introducing the language at the vir-

tual gathering June 12-13, CHA President and Chief Executive Officer Sr. Mary Haddad, RSM, said, “Articulating a vision — a desired future — for CHA is a collective effort toward a future that serves the good of all, particularly those who are poor and vulnerable.”

Sr. Mary explained in her remarks that it

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Calls for deeper connections resound at CHA Assembly

By LISA EISENHAUER

CHA brought together care providers, executives, administrators and others within the Catholic health ministry for its 2023 Catholic Health Assembly and encouraged them to make authentic connections, practice self-care, and align their work with a newly stated vision.

The event’s theme was “A Time to Con-

We Will Empower Bold Change to Elevate Human Flourishing

Author cites moral injury, not necessarily burnout, as cause of clinicians’ distress

By VALERIE SCHREMP HAHN

While pulling weeds in her garden, Dr. Wendy Dean listened to a news report about moral injury in drone pilots who never actually saw combat.

She had heard of moral injury before — doctor and psychiatrist Jonathan Shay, who had worked with Vietnam veterans suffering with posttraumatic stress disorder, developed the term. It’s the feelings of distress and betrayal that happen when someone can’t do their job or has to act or witness something against their values or moral beliefs.

nect.” Sr. Mary Haddad, RSM, president and chief executive officer of CHA, told those gathered: “As stewards of this ministry, it is both our treasure and responsibility to invite others into the connectedness to which we are called and to be more fully aware of the sacred in our lives.”

Attendees got encouragement to tend to their own wellness; opportunities to share their thoughts, comments and ques-

tions; and a chance to join an interactive session to connect with peers from across the Catholic health ministry. The three keynote speakers each delved into an aspect of wellness.

Sr. Mary also revealed CHA’s new vision statement — “We will empower bold change to elevate human flourishing” — on June 12, the first of the virtual event’s two

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Dean, a keynote speaker at CHA’s 2023 Catholic Health Assembly, recalled making the connection between drone pilots and what she saw in medicine. “I thought, hang on, if these folks who go from their suburban house to a base, fly their drones and go back home again can experience moral injury, maybe other folks can too, including those in health care,” she said.

A psychiatrist by training, Dean is president and co-founder of The Moral Injury

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Through workers’ voices, St. Luke’s Health showcases its diversity

By LISA EISENHAUER

St. Luke’s Health is using a video platform to spotlight the diverse cultures and experiences of its workers.

Tyler Peavy, director of clinical integration networks for the Houston-based system that is part of CommonSpirit Health, discussed the videos that make up the Listening to Our Voices series at a session of

the 2023 Catholic Health Assembly.

Peavy said the goals of the campaign are twofold. One is to show St. Luke’s employees that there are others with similar backgrounds to their own working alongside them.

The second goal, Peavy said, is to make patients aware of the diver-

sity of the system’s workforce. The hope is that if patients see care providers who look like them and have similar backgrounds to their own, they will be more comfortable on their visits to St. Luke’s facilities, he added. St. Luke’s is rolling out the videos monthly. Each is about three minutes long. Staff are viewing the videos as reflections at the start of meetings. The screenings are typically followed by discussions about

what the video brought to mind, Peavy said.

“This is not just a black or white thing,” he noted. “There’s so many different backgrounds and different walks of life people bring to the table each and every day.”

‘A beautiful experience’ Angela Hudson, division director of marketing-communications at St. Luke’s, Peavy

Damond Boatwright, president and chief executive officer of Hospital Sisters Health System, joins Sr. Mary Haddad, RSM, president and chief executive officer of CHA, in a studio at Once Films in St. Louis for the broadcast of the 2023 Catholic Health Assembly. CHA installed Boatwright as chair of the association’s board of trustees during the two-day virtual event. Just over 400 people registered to attend.

Dean

Lyke/@CHA

United in mission, let us look forward with hope and faith

DAMOND BOATWRIGHT 2023-2024 Chairperson CHA Board of Trustees President and chief executive officer Hospital Sisters Health System Springfield, Illinois

We all know that these are complex and challenging times. We face financial and workforce challenges, disparities in health outcomes and income distribution, unprecedented polarization in our society, and the distrust of most institutions. Some of these challenges might seem insurmountable. They can weigh on us all — from senior administration to the frontline workers — so much so that we might doubt that these trials can ever be overcome. Our faith tradition and the Catholic health ministry’s history shows that they can.

In John 5, Jesus meets a paralyzed man lying by a pool. The man is one of many people at the pool and he tells Jesus that he cannot make it down into the pool. Jesus says to the man, “Rise! Pick up your mat and walk!” After 38 years of illness, the man does just that. He gets up and walks.

Within our organizations, we have many examples of people inspired by a loving encounter with Jesus to rise and serve with faith, strength and courage. The founders and foundresses of our organizations often faced hardships. They responded to the call to serve with a resounding, “Here I am, Lord,” and they found creative ways to meet evolving needs within the communities they served. What started as care in homes and on the streets is now a $4.2 trillion industry.

Today, we are the pioneers of health care. God gives each of us the strength to pick up our mat and take the work of CHA forward.

As your new CHA board chair, I want to issue a call to action to unite around

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our new CHA vision statement: “We will empower bold change to elevate human flourishing.”

Our vision calls us to unite to bring about systemic shifts. Given our commitments to human dignity and the common good, we must advance a more equitable, just and sustainable health care funding system that promotes shared responsibility of all stakeholders for the health and wellness of every person.

Our vision calls us to unite in designing and delivering the highest quality of care for optimal health outcomes across the full continuum of care.

Our vision calls us to unite in advancing access for every person, and especially

those who are low-income or vulnerable.

As Jesus in John 5, we must listen to the distinct experiences of those burdened by economic, physical, or social marginalization. Amidst a multitude of people with various ailments, Jesus specifically sought out the man who couldn’t make it to the pool: A man marginalized even within an already marginalized group. As Catholic health care, we must seek out the marginalized and reduce health disparities.

As the U.S. Catholic health ministry, we must look forward with hope and courage.

Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Please know that each of you matters in pursuing our future: By being part of U.S. Catholic health care, in whatever role you hold, you embody God’s healing and unifying love. Your work matters within our collective efforts to empower change.

I am sincerely honored to serve as the next board chair of the Catholic Health Association, and I pledge to represent the association and each of you to the best of my abilities.

May God bless you and the communities you serve. And may God bless and guide CHA as we seek to extend the healing love of our God to the patients, colleagues and communities that we serve.

Pace e Bene!

Breathe in, then join the effort to advance CHA’s vision

LAURA KAISER

2022-2023 Chairperson

CHA Board of Trustees President and chief executive officer

SSM Health, St. Louis

At a recent CHA meeting, we began by taking three deep breaths — one for ourselves, the second for our colleagues and the third for those we serve together. This simple reflection was a powerful reminder to take time to pause and be fully present in all circumstances. Being present fosters health and well-being, strengthens connectedness to one another and enhances our ability to deliver our mission.

The theme of this year’s Assembly was “A Time to Connect.” God made us for connection — with Him and with others. We find God in community, and these social connections make us stronger and more resilient. Our work is both thrilling and difficult, at times. With significant challenges ahead, like the increasing health equity gap and deteriorating health of our planet, we are called to lean in to address these opportunities together.

Our new vision statement — “We will empower bold change to elevate human flourishing” — speaks to these challenges and to the very fabric of Catholic health care. The founders of our shared health

ministry answered the sacred call to bring hope and healing to all who were suffering. They boldly challenged the status quo, working tirelessly to advance social justice and compassionate care for creation, and they helped build many of our nation’s first schools, hospitals and health systems. Today, we carry on their legacy, stewarding for today and for the future.

As I pass the chairperson baton into the capable hands of my friend and colleague Damond Boatwright, I am eager to advance our vision together. It’s ambitious and exciting — so let’s pause to take a centering breath for ourselves, for each other and, finally, for those we serve together.

Upcoming Events from The Catholic Health Association

Faith Community Nurse Networking Zoom Call July 25 | 1 – 2 p.m. ET

Catholic Ethics for Health Care Leaders Virtual Program

Tuesdays Sept. 5 – Oct. 17 | 1 – 3 p.m. ET

Mission in Long-Term Care Networking Zoom Call (Members only) Sept. 6 | 1 – 2 p.m. ET

Deans of Catholic Colleges of Nursing Networking Zoom Call Oct. 3 | 1 – 2 p.m. ET

United Against Human Trafficking Networking Zoom Call

Oct. 4 | Noon – 1 p.m. ET

Community Benefit 101: The Nuts and Bolts of Planning and Reporting Community Benefits Virtual Program

Oct. 24 – 26 | 2 – 5 p.m. ET each day

From left, SSM Health President and Chief Executive Officer Laura Kaiser, Hospital Sisters Health System President and Chief Executive Officer Damond Boatwright and CHA President and Chief Executive Officer Sr. Mary Haddad, RSM, interact during the broadcast of the 2023 Catholic Health Assembly. Kaiser handed over the chairmanship of CHA’s board on June 13, the second day of the two-day virtual gathering.

ACHIEVEMENT CITATION

Mercy chaplains tap technology to connect with COVID Care @ Home patients

By LISA EISENHAUER

When Mercy launched COVID Care @ Home early in the pandemic, the focus was on connecting patients who had tested positive for the virus with medical care providers 24/7 by text, video and phone as they recovered at home.

It wasn’t long before Mercy chaplains asked if they could offer emotional support and spiritual care services to those patients. “I think we encountered a lot of our athome patients dealing with the uncertainty that we were all facing, of not knowing what the disease was or how it would affect us personally or communally,” says Justin Martin, a board-certified chaplain who is part of Mercy Virtual, the Chesterfield, Missouri-based system’s virtual hospital and telehealth center.

Most of the at-home patients, Martin notes, were quarantined alone or in spaces separate from others in their families. “That brought on a lot of emotional and spiritual distress,” he says.

Mercy tapped Martin and Cody Alley, a board-certified chaplain and spiritual care supervisor based at Mercy Hospital Lebanon in Southwestern Missouri, to come up with a way to add spiritual care to COVID Care @ Home. The two consulted with physicians and leaders within Mercy Virtual to figure out how to identify patients desiring the care and how the health system could process referrals for the care.

Spiritual 911

By September 2020, with the support of Mercy’s technology services team, the two chaplains had developed and begun using a screening tool delivered through a series of short text messages.

Within two years, more than 240,000 patients across Mercy’s service areas in Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas had undergone the screenings and about 16% of them had self-reported distress. Mercy asked those patients if they’d like to speak with a Mercy chaplain by phone. About 2,000 patients said yes.

For its innovative approach to detecting spiritual distress among COVID patients who are getting virtual care and linking them to chaplains, the Mercy COVID Care @ Home Spiritual Care program is the 2023 recipient of CHA’s highest annual honor — the Achievement Citation. CHA presented the award during the Catholic Health Assembly, which the association held virtually this year.

‘Somebody in the God space’

Steve Mackin, president and chief executive of Mercy, says the system “is always focused on finding innovative, new ways to holistically address the needs of all our communities.”

Mackin says the COVID Care @ Home Spiritual Care program uncovered and met a deep need from one patient group for chaplaincy services. “This program had such a profound effect that it is still in place,” he says. Mackin notes that the program is “fully mirroring the way we think about providing care today.”

Chaplain Martin says virtual spiritual care is “living into our Catholic identity and mission.”

says, they asked her about her life and counseled her to be good to herself.

Elliott says that while the pastor and congregation at her nondenominational Christian church also were praying for her, she got added peace of mind from her conversations with the Mercy chaplains. “That made it easier for me and made me more relaxed because I had somebody in the God space that was encouraging me and praying with me that didn’t even know me,” she recalls.

Elliott says she found Mercy’s holistic care during her COVID convalescence to be uplifting. “They wanted to make sure I was OK in every area,” she adds.

Four questions

Mercy’s virtual spiritual care screenings are a series of questions posed by text. The questions go out twice, on patients’ second and ninth days of the 14-day COVID Care @ Home program.

it on our desk and saying, ‘Here they are,’” he says.

The services the chaplains provide in their calls to the patients vary, Martin and Alley say. Sometimes, the chaplains serve as a sounding board as patients talk about the causes of their distress. Sometimes they join the patients in prayer. Occasionally, the chaplains will serve as a bridge between patients and faith communities from which the patients have become estranged or between patients and social service agencies.

Martin recalls one chaplain who, after hearing that a patient had lost his job and was on the verge of becoming homeless, connected the patient with a Mercy community health worker. That worker helped the patient find supportive community services.

Chaplains from across Mercy call COVID Care @ Home patients who request spiritual care. Their role, Martin says, is “being present and journeying alongside those patients, providing them encouragement and support, and helping them connect back to what is meaningful for them as they make sense of their illness.”

Dianne Elliott, who resides in suburban St. Louis, took advantage of Mercy’s offer of spiritual care when she contracted COVID earlier this year and isolated at home, away from a family that stretches to nine greatgrandchildren. “It was really a lonely 14 days and it’s scary,” Elliott says.

She credits the outreach from Mercy chaplains with helping her manage her anxiety and cope with the isolation. The chaplains not only prayed with her, Elliott

The first question asks patients if they are feeling decreased joy, purpose and meaning in their lives. The second question asks whether they feel disconnected from their religious tradition or from other people. The third asks if they are feeling grief or loss.

Martin says that patients can opt out of the screenings at any time by texting back that they want to disenroll or by answering no to the questions. Patients who opt out get a final text letting them know that if they have a change of heart, Mercy’s e-Chaplain services, which come via email, are available at any time.

If patients answer in the affirmative to any of the first three screening questions, they get a text asking if they would like to speak by phone with a chaplain. Mercy added that fourth question after the screenings were underway, when it became clear that some patients who indicated distress didn’t necessarily want to talk about it when a chaplain called.

Alley says some patients have told the chaplains that, though they hadn’t realized before their screening that they were experiencing distress, they preferred to deal with it themselves, with family or through another means of support.

Needles in the haystack

Through the questions, Alley says, Mercy identifies those in the COVID Care @ Home program who are open to spiritual care and who would like a Mercy chaplain to provide it. “This screening has helped us go from trying to find a needle in the haystack to somebody bringing a box of needles, sitting

“By asking the spiritual and emotional questions, we as the ministry were able to identify that need for that patient and connect them to other resources that we have to get some of those needs met,” Martin says.

More touch points

Mercy says the spiritual care screening program required about $5,000 in startup funding, mostly to cover the labor expense for the technology build. Mercy sustains the program operationally through existing budgets, the services of two full-time virtual chaplains, and when needed, the support of 10 inpatient care chaplains.

Because of the success of the screenings, Mercy has begun to expand them beyond COVID Care @ Home. Mercy is piloting the use of the screening tool to assess palliative care patients and women’s health patients for emotional and spiritual care needs.

Alley says the expansion of the screenings gets Mercy closer to its goal of making all of its services, including spiritual care, available to patients wherever they are and whenever they need them.

Sharon Millsap was a Mercy COVID Care @ Home patient just after the first of the year. She welcomed the spiritual care calls and credits Mercy’s holistic care for helping her to shake symptoms that lingered long after she was clear of the virus. “The COVID just threw me into a whole fog, and I was so depressed, and so hopeless and despairing and fatigued,” says Millsap, a retired nurse who lives in St. Louis.

She says it took until late April before those symptoms went away. Of Martin, she says: “He kept me going. And it worked.”

leisenhauer@chausa.org

Mercy chaplains, from left, Joe Chapman, Cody Alley and Justin Martin are all part of the Mercy COVID Care @ Home Spiritual Care program. The program uses texts and phone calls to identify and address spiritual distress in Mercy patients with COVID-19 who are getting virtual care.

Sharon Millsap connected with Mercy chaplains while she was a Mercy COVID Care @ Home patient. She says the spiritual care helped her cope with lingering effects of the illness that included depression and fatigue.

“This program had such a profound effect that it is still in place.”

— Steve Mackin

Sr. O’Connor’s formation work helped secure future of Catholic health care

By MARY DELACH LEONARD

Sr. Catherine O’Connor, CSB, tells the story of encountering a maintenance worker in an empty back corridor of a hospital where she worked years ago. She was struck by his diligence on a quiet weekend day, dutifully cleaning baseboards that few people would ever see.

“I still remember that man,’’ she said in her gentle Irish accent. “He was faithfully doing what he had committed to do. And no one probably knew that, except himself and myself.”

For Sr. O’Connor, the man’s dedication exemplifies the importance of every employee in fulfilling a health care system’s mission every day, no matter their job title.

“I got that value from my parents,’’ said Sr. O’Connor, who was born in a small village near Dublin, the middle child of 13 siblings. Her father, a contractor, had several businesses, and she recalls his employees often joining her family for dinner.

“We were always taught to have the utmost respect for them. It was like they were an extended family,’’ she said. “It was rooted in my family values that every person is worthy of dignity and respect. There’s no point in talking about the Gospel unless we live it.”

Colleagues fondly recall Sr. O’Connor’s welcoming ways during her tenure as vice president for mission and sponsorship for Tewksbury, Massachusetts-based Covenant Health. She helped develop and implement groundbreaking formation programs that guide lay leaders in deep spiritual exploration and prepare them to shepherd ministries in fidelity to their founding congregations.

She was a co-founder and early leader of the “Collaborative Formation Program for Public Juridic Persons,” which started in 2005. She was essential in transitioning the sponsor formation program to CHA in 2015.

“She just brings out the best in people and truly has been a leader in Catholic health care,’’ said Elizabeth Keene, vice president of mission for St. Mary’s Health System, a member of Covenant Health, in Lewiston, Maine. “She has a way of connecting people, whether you are Catholic or not, with the mission of the health system and the mission of healing and caring for people. She can be humorous and gentle, but she does call you to that higher standard to be the best person you can be.’’

Irish charm

Friends say that Sr. O’Connor’s gift for storytelling probably helped a wee bit, too.

“My colleagues would come back after attending a session led by Sr. Cathy and tell me, ‘I could just listen to her all day,’” Keene said. “And then they would add, ‘But, you know, I really do remember pretty much everything she said.’”

Sr. O’Connor was elected congregational leader of the Brigidine sisters in 2016. She returned to Ireland in 2020, after 54 years in the U.S. She continues her service to Covenant Health as a member of its combined operating/sponsor board.

CHA is honoring Sr. O’Connor’s trailblazing efforts in sponsorship and formation with the 2023 Sister Concilia Moran Award, named for visionary health care and ministry leader Sr. Mary Concilia Moran, RSM. Presented at the 2023 Catholic Health Assembly, the award recognizes an individual in Catholic health care who has demonstrated creativity, leadership and breakthrough thinking that advances the ministry.

Passing the torch

Sr. O’Connor was among the forwardthinking women religious who recognized in the 1990s that as vocations declined and

their members aged, congregations would have to adopt new sponsorship models that would welcome Catholic laity to guide ministerial works in accord with the heritage and missions of founding congregations. Sponsorship is undertaken on behalf of the Catholic Church.

“I’ve never been worried about the future because we’ve got so many wonderful lay people continuing the work we were doing,’’ Sr. O’Connor said.

She first witnessed the strength of laity, newly empowered by Vatican II, shortly after her arrival in the United States in 1965. After teaching for several years, she was assigned to work with laypeople to establish a new parish near San Antonio.

“It was one of the great experiences in my life,’’ she said.

A deep trust

Covenant Health was founded by the Grey Nuns, the Sisters of Charity of Montreal, and it grew through assuming sponsorship of other Catholic facilities and systems. The health care system includes hospitals, skilled nursing and rehabilitation centers and assisted living residences in New England and Pennsylvania.

Health corporate leadership team in 2007 to provide strategic direction in the areas of mission and sponsorship, Catholic identity, ethics and social justice.

Thom Morris, who recently retired as chief sponsorship and theology officer for Bon Secours Mercy Health, calls Sr. O’Connor a good friend. They worked together on formation programs in the United States and at Bon Secours’ hospitals in Ireland.

“What sets Cathy apart is her ability to walk with another, both in their pain and their joy,’’ Morris said. “She is a woman who has faced suffering in her own life, and she has walked along with people who have struggled. Yet, she remains a person of hope.’’

He admires her sense of humor and concern for others.

“She’s also not afraid to address the hard issues that come up,’’ Morris said. “In our sessions, if people asked difficult questions, she didn’t shy from it. She also did it in a way that people felt affirmed and cared for.’’

Letting go

Sr. O’Connor’s knack for facilitating difficult conversations was evident when she led Covenant Health’s efforts to adopt core values and a systemwide mission statement.

“The challenge was that we had 22 core values across the system, and each facility had their own mission statement, reflecting the charism of the religious congregation that had entrusted their ministry to Covenant,’’ Sr. O’Connor said. “They were being asked to let go of something very precious to them.”

—

In 1995, the Vatican approved the Grey Nuns’ request to make Covenant Health Systems a public juridic person and allow for lay participation as sponsor members.

In 2007, the Grey Nuns were authorized to entrust their reserve powers to the public juridic person. The board then became a full self-perpetuating sponsor of Covenant Health, the civil corporation. The civil board is the mirror board of the canonical sponsor board.

Sr. O’Connor joined the Covenant

After several systemwide consultations, Covenant adopted one mission statement and four core values. Sr. O’Connor also invited each of the 13 Covenant facilities to write heritage statements to honor the hard work of their founding religious sisters. In this way, Covenant facilities retain their individual legacies while sharing a united mission and core values.

‘Attentive to the Gospel’

Sr. O’Connor jokes that she learned diplomacy while negotiating with her 12 siblings. She speaks lovingly of her parents and credits them for shaping her life’s values. She was still a child when her father became ill. He died when she was 17.

“His death was a profound influence on my life,’’ she said. “It gave me a sense of how

short life is.’’

Although she had been accepted into college, she decided instead to join the Congregation of St. Brigid.

Sr. O’Connor speaks humbly about her years of service, but her resume tells a different story. Among her many diverse achievements: She is a licensed psychologist and a diplomate in the American Psychotherapy Association. She earned a Ph.D. in psychology and religion from Boston University. She completed a cross-cultural study of the Spanish language in Ecuador and Mexico. Before joining Covenant, Sr. O’Connor was senior vice president of mission integration at Caritas Christi Health Care in Boston. She developed the Lay Ministry Institute at the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio and has administered clinical pastoral education programs.

Preparing for completion

Though she concluded her term as congregation leader in 2022, Sr. O’Connor remains on the congregational leadership team of the Brigidine sisters. She is now helping the order plan for its own completion of mission. At its height, 700 sisters belonged to the order. Today, there are 148.

“We are preparing for completion, but we are still doing good work,’’ Sr. O’Connor said. “We are preparing to let go gracefully.’’ Sr. O’Connor has faith that the mission of the Brigidines will live on beyond the life of the congregation, carried forward by laity.

“We served a purpose for a time,’’ she said. “I believe God is still with us, creating something new in the midst of a very difficult time in our world. We can look around and find so many people doing good in countless ways.”

Sr. O’Connor points to the success of public juridic persons in Catholic health care.

“I was just at a board meeting at Covenant, and I was so inspired,’’ she said. “Many religious congregations have entrusted their health care ministries to laypeople, who are committed to the vision and values of Catholic health care. They are continuing the mission and healing ministry of Jesus with great dedication and creativity, in the midst of tremendous challenges.”

Citing a phrase from CHA’s “Shared Statement of Identity for the Catholic Health Ministry,” Sr. O’Connor adds: “The good news of the Gospel is being translated into action as people seek to do as Jesus did, to ‘transform hurt into hope.’”

“What sets Cathy apart is her ability to walk with another, both in their pain and their joy. She is a woman who has faced suffering in her own life, and she has walked along with people who have struggled. Yet, she remains a person of hope.’’

Thom Morris

As vice president for mission and sponsorship for Covenant Health, Sr. Catherine O’Connor, CSB, helped develop and implement groundbreaking formation programs that prepare lay leaders to shepherd the ministry.

Once Films

Hochman guides Providence in bold health equity, diversity work

By JOSH MATEJKA

On any given morning, Dr. Rod Hochman tries to spend a few minutes connecting in spirit with the 117,000 caregivers employed by Providence St. Joseph Health across seven Western states.

“What I like to think about early in the morning in my office is what’s happening right at that moment,” said Hochman. “At that moment, there are about 1,000 patients getting prepped for surgery. ORs are getting cranked up. The first home health visits are happening; staff are in the ICU; they’re making rounds. And I think about all the interactions between our caregivers and the people we serve.”

Hochman considers every one of those contacts as a potential sacred encounter. As president and chief executive of Providence, he has helped elevate efforts to foster a culture of respect where sacred encounters and other moments of meaningful human connection are valued. His belief in the inherent worth of every individual drives his work to advance social justice and health equity at Providence and in the United States. For that leadership, he is the 2023 recipient of CHA’s Sister Carol Keehan Award.

Sr. Carol, in whose honor the award is given, is a past president and chief executive of CHA. She is one of the nation’s most effective advocates for expanding health care access by growing and sustaining Medicaid.

Under Hochman’s leadership, Providence fights to sustain Medicaid and Medicare programs and supports environmental and social initiatives to prevent chronic diseases and improve population health in vulnerable communities.

During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Providence found itself in the center of the chaos the virus wrought in the United States. The first COVID-19 patient to be hospitalized in the United States was treated in a Providence facility in the Seattle metropolitan area. Western Washington, which is home to several Providence ministries and its system office, was the country’s first epicenter of the pandemic.

Early in the pandemic, public health offi-

cials began to observe that communities of color and the medically marginalized were at a significantly higher risk of contracting COVID and having worse outcomes than whites. Less than six months into the pandemic in the United States, Providence committed $50 million over five years to address the underlying racial disparities in health care that were amplified by the pandemic.

Gabriela Robles, chief executive of the St. Joseph Community Partnership Fund in Los Angeles, said Hochman is dedicated to improving the health and well-being of communities, particularly those facing economic hardship and generational poverty.

“He’s always asking, ‘How is the community doing? How do we (at Providence) break through these structures of oppression so people can flourish? How can we do better?’”

Child of immigrants

Robles isn’t surprised by this sort of interest from Hochman. Hochman is the child of two immigrants who came to the United States from Europe during World War II. He states that they “had to fight through everything they did” and instilled a sense of camaraderie in him from an early age.

“The immigrant experience is something that I think is really formative for me,” said Hochman. “The question that my parents always had for me is, ‘What are you going to give back?’ That was not elective.”

Robles attributes Hochman’s connection with vulnerable people to his own story and the empathy it fostered.

“I just think it’s how he’s hard-wired,” Robles said. “Everything is rooted in love.”

When to step up or step back

Given the heightened political nature of many issues facing Catholic health care, Hochman understands he has to balance boldness with diplomacy. He said there comes a point, however, when a leader must step up for what is right and let the chips fall where they may.

In moments like that, Hochman said he draws his inspiration from the courage Sr. Carol demonstrated in driving support for the Affordable Care Act when there were

deep divisions within the Catholic Church and the country over the bill, which gave millions access to affordable insurance.

“When do these issues become so pivotal that you can’t back away?” Hochman asked.

Hochman has put stakes in the ground for expanded health care access — the system is among the nation’s most vocal in its support of Medicaid and Medicare. Environmental justice is another area where Providence is out front. The system has committed to becoming carbon negative by the year 2030.

“It’s an audacious goal,” said Hochman. Climate change threatens the health of everyone, but the economically disadvantaged will pay the heaviest price. Given the stakes, “You’ve got to take that kind of a stance,” Hochman said.

That was not elective.”

— Dr. Rod Hochman

Investment in mental health and wellbeing is another area where Hochman is showing national leadership.

Mary Lyons, a past chair and current member of the Providence Board of Directors, said when St. Joseph Health and Providence Health and Services merged in 2016, Hochman was determined that the system quickly make its impact felt.

“One of the first things we did as a new system is that we agreed to invest a lot of money to create a nonprofit called the WellBeing Trust,” Lyons said.

Providence committed $100 million to the nonprofit, first known as the Institute for Mental Health and Wellness. The trust’s vision, according to its website, is: “Everyone realizes their fullest potential for wellbeing.” It’s a vision that Lyons sees in the community-level outreach work Hochman

champions at Providence and in the brain trust he’s built to achieve the system’s mission of nurturing the spiritual, emotional and physical well-being of Providence staff and the people the system serves.

“He finds these really talented people from all over, convinces them to come work for us and then lets them do their jobs,” Lyons said. Executives recruited by Hochman have been key players in propelling Providence’s bold approach toward advancing social justice and health equity, she added.

“I think the founders — the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange and the Sisters of Providence — can see in Rod and his team that their own work continues to be vital,” said Lyons. “It lives on in the work that Rod inspires others to do and that he does himself.”

Social justice champion

Hochman has “been an advocate for issues of social justice as long as I’ve known him,” said Isiaah Crawford, president of University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. “It’s part of his personal set of values and his personal, professional commitment.”

Crawford met Hochman more than a decade ago, when Crawford was provost at Seattle University and Hochman was the chief executive at Swedish Health Services. Hochman invited Crawford to serve on the Swedish board. It was there that he noticed Hochman’s commitment to social justice work. Crawford called Hochman a champion of all things diversity, equity and inclusion and of expanded health care access.

“He gets a sense of personal value when he answers the question, ‘How have I been helpful today? How was I able to help someone have a sense of belief in themselves that they didn’t have yesterday?’” Crawford said.

Crawford called Hochman a serviceoriented leader; someone who always treats people with respect, is responsive and adaptable, and facilitates people to bring new ideas and concepts forward. “He does not have to be the star,” Crawford said. “He’s open to making sure the sun shines where it needs to shine.”

Dr. Rod Hochman, president and chief executive of Providence St. Joseph Health, has ensured a focus at the system on mental health and well-being.

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“The immigrant experience is something that I think is really formative for me. The question that my parents always had for me is, ‘What are you going to give back?’

Sr. Werthman pioneered the use of data to advance community health

By PATRICIA CORRIGAN

In the 1980s when Sr. Linda Werthman, RSM, set out to pinpoint pockets of unmet health needs in communities served by Mercy Health Services, there were no database dashboards to yield the coordinates. The information age was in its infancy.

Sr. Werthman used census and other public data to locate at-risk populations and she developed formats to use that information in community benefit planning. Mercy Health Services was a predecessor to Trinity Health in Michigan and Iowa.

Sr. Werthman encouraged hospital leaders to get out into neighborhoods and talk to people struggling with poverty and related social barriers and let them have a say in setting the health system’s outreach priorities. That forged the path for what would follow.

“The modern history of Catholic health care community needs assessment can be traced to Sr. Linda Werthman,” said Julie Trocchio, CHA’s senior director of community benefit and continuing care.

Sr. Werthman, the 2023 recipient of CHA’s Lifetime Achievement Award, influenced the association’s work in shaping public policy related to community benefit spending by hospitals and health systems. Sr. Werthman, who holds a doctorate in social policy and planning, was ahead of the crowd too in helping to advance community benefit spending to address food and housing insecurity and promote economic development in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

The award was presented during the Catholic Health Assembly, which was held virtually this year. In nominating Sr. Werthman for the career recognition, Sr. Mary Ann Dillon, RSM, said that throughout her 40 years in Catholic health care governance Sr. Werthman has had a singular dedication to assure that those experiencing poverty and who are vulnerable will be cared for within Catholic health care organizations in Detroit, where she lives, and well beyond.

Sr. Dillon is Trinity Health’s executive vice president of mission integration and sponsorship.

A founding member of the Detroitbased Sisters of Mercy Health Corp., in the mid-1970s Sr. Werthman supported new governance structures that would extend and strengthen the legacy of the religious communities whose works were a part of Sisters of Mercy, especially their concern for marginalized and underserved people.

Later, as president of the Sisters of Mercy Regional Community of Detroit, Sr. Werthman would partner with Holy Cross Health Services to establish the second U.S.-based ministerial juridic person, Catholic Health Ministries. The MJP led to the forming of Trinity Health, which in 2013 consolidated

with Catholic Health East.

Mike Slubowski, Trinity Health president and chief executive, said of Sr. Werthman: “She knew from day one that the only way we can truly deliver on our mission is to advance community health and wellbeing by impacting the social influencers of health.”

Woman of action

Now semiretired, Sr. Werthman is a member of the Trinity Health Michigan regional board and the board of Trinity Health Detroit, an entity within Trinity Health Michigan that partners with Detroit residents to empower them to have healthy communities. She sits on the board of the Pope Francis Center in Detroit, which provides vital services to people who are without permanent shelter. She also is a trustee at Carlow University in Pittsburgh. From 2012 to 2019, Sr. Werthman was a member of the Trinity Health board. She chaired Catholic Health Ministries from 2016 to 2018. She is past chair and board member of Mercy Housing.

“The marrying of clinical and social care has always been at the forefront for her,” Slubowski said in an interview. He added that Sr. Werthman’s penchant for careful reflection inspires him, as does her gift for turning thoughts into action. “Sr. Linda is so involved in making things happen, both in her role in governance in the health care system and at a community level,” he said.

“She’s very connected.”

Slubowski recalled how Sr. Werthman’s visionary input in 2000 helped shape the

Samaritan Center into “a premier community, social and medical services resource center in one of the most challenged neighborhoods of Detroit.”

“When Sr. Linda speaks, people listen,” Slubowski said.

The potter’s wheel

Sr. Helen Marie Burns, RSM, a longtime colleague and close friend, said that while it’s Sr. Werthman’s nature to be focused on action and purpose, she has a soft side.

“There is a heart there that is very generous and respectful, and she is genuinely interested in people. She wants to be helpful, and as the eldest in her family, she has honed that into a virtue. Whether people are being served, whether they have what they need to flourish — that is her focus.”

Sr. Burns, who met Sr. Werthman in the 1970s, reported that her friend spends her leisure time reading nonfiction and historical novels, attending Detroit Symphony Orchestra concerts and seeing plays at community theaters.

“She enjoys good conversation and walks in nature, and she’s a potter. She first took lessons about 10 years ago.” Laughing, Sr. Burns added, “She also likes Star Wars and James Bond movies — interests that I don’t share.”

Twice a month, both women serve meals at the Pope Francis Center. “Sr. Linda is not one to move from cause to cause, and the steady thread of her focus has been concern for those on the margins,” Sr. Burns said. “That began with economic poverty and has developed into understanding how race marginalizes people and is moving toward broader interests, such as marginalization due to sexual orientation.”

Setting the standard

Sr. Werthman was born and brought up on the west side of Detroit, not far from her current home, in what she described as “a Catholic, white world.” She entered the convent at 17, and later graduated from Mercy College with degrees in history and elementary education.

“I taught math and science for four years, and while in the classroom, I realized some students needed more attention than others,” she said. “That made me want to go back to school to study social work.” She received a stipend from the National Institute for Mental Health and enrolled in Michigan State University. “Social work opened a world for me, one that led to working in health care governance.”

One of Sr. Werthman’s early mentors

was the late Sr. Mary Janice Belen, RSM. “At the very young age of 28 or 29, I was taken by the hand of Sr. Belen, who was the chief executive officer and board chair at St. Lawrence Jackson Hospitals in Michigan,” she said. “She wanted me on her board, which for me was learning on the job  — and some of it wasn’t pretty.”

In 1985, Sr. Werthman earned her Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. A year later, Judith Call, then executive vice president of Mercy Health Services (formerly known as Sisters of Mercy Health Corp.), asked Sr. Werthman to be a director of The Special Initiative for the Poor, a project to assess the health system’s services. Susannah Parker Sinard was the project’s associate director. Sr. Werthman describes the working relationship as the best of her career.

After six months of listening to hospital administrators, workers and board members, it was clear that those individuals were at a loss. “They did not really know who the poor were; they didn’t know them as persons,” Sr. Werthman said. “To their credit, they did want to know what they were doing for the poor, so we created a process. We suggested they go into the community to talk to educators, social service providers and the people at risk, people who were economically poor and didn’t know how to access health care. That effort, The Community Assessment of Human Needs, is one of the things Susannah and I are most proud of.”

Around that same time, CHA’s Trocchio started exploring what distinguishes Catholic and other not-for-profit health care from the emerging for-profit health care sector.

Trocchio said: “Over 30 years ago, I was assigned the task of identifying Catholic and other not-for-profit hospitals to learn how they distinguish themselves in meeting community health needs so we could provide a guide. We looked up what was out there on community assessments, casting a wide net to see who was doing what. Some were conducting interviews; some were knocking on doors.”

Sr. Werthman, Trocchio discovered, was using statistics and other hard data — information that was not so easily available then. “She was the only person in the country using data to determine community needs, poring over census data and reports from health departments. That changed everything,” Trocchio said. “Soon, people all over the country started using her method, and it became the standard.”

Sr. Werthman hugs Antonio Lynch, front desk supervisor at the Samaritan Center, a community, social and medical services resource center in a challenged neighborhood in Detroit.

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Sr. Linda Werthman, RSM, led the crowd in advancing community benefit spending to address food and housing insecurity and promote economic development in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

After mental health struggles, drummer now teaches about emotional wellness

By VALERIE SCHREMP HAHN

Mike Veny was an angry kid. He’d get into trouble, hit his little brother, yell and fight at school.

“I just thought I was a bad kid,” said Veny, a keynote speaker at CHA’s 2023 Catholic Health Assembly. “I was told to stop being bad. I didn’t know why I was angry and upset all the time, but I just was.”

Veny became a professional drummer, and now he’s a corporate wellness specialist. He’s written several books, including Transforming Stigma: How to Become a Mental Wellness Superhero, and co-hosts a podcast called Bettermental

Veny further described his time growing up on Long Island in New York. He had supportive, wonderful parents, he said, but his mental health and behavior issues got him expelled from schools and placed into mental hospitals. At age 10, he tried to overdose on his medications.

Drumming at his desk led to drumming lessons, which led to enrollment in a performing arts high school. He felt happiest at the drums. Starting at age 18, he toured the country as a professional drummer. He still drums, gives drumming and wellness workshops, and also gives people tools to help their own wellness and mental health.

Focus on self-care

He asks people to focus on self-care: for daily living (things like teeth brushing and laundry), for coping (such as preparing for a busy time at work) and for healing (bringing in professionals if needed to deal with trauma).

Moral injury

From page 1 of Healthcare, a nonprofit that addresses the crisis of clinician distress. Dean and cofounder Simon Talbot, a plastic surgeon, wrote If I Betray These Words: Moral Injury in Medicine and Why It’s So Hard for Clinicians to Put Patients First, published in April.

Finding the right language

She and Talbot talked to numerous colleagues, including a nurse practitioner who retired early because she couldn’t stand to keep turning away from her patients to enter data; a doctor who quit two jobs in five years when her hospital told her where she could and could not refer her sick patients with cancer; and a physician who said business imperatives were undermining his medical judgment and “inflicting financial toxicity” on his patients.

“What they all said was, ‘I’m struggling, I’m distressed, but burnout doesn’t quite fit. It’s not quite the right language,’” Dean said.

She and Talbot wrote an article in 2018 for the online publication STAT called “Physicians aren’t ‘burning out.’ They’re suffering from moral injury.”

Dean learned it was one of the site’s most read articles. “And that isn’t because we’re so clever,” she said. “What that said to us was that clinicians were hungry for a new way to describe their distress.”

Then came the COVID-19 pandemic.

For the next three years, Dean said, “I fielded variations of this same theme with clinicians saying to me, ‘It’s not that I can’t handle my job. I can’t handle being unable

Speaker urges self-care for those who care for others

By VALERIE SCHREMP HAHN

People who care deeply about their work and who have a strong sense of purpose and mission — like many health care workers — are at the highest risk of suffering from burnout, according to Nataly Kogan. And she wants to help.

As Veny spoke, he leaned into his camera, pretending to see his virtual audience. “You’re multitasking,” he said. “You’ve got another window open on your computer. You’re on your phone. That’s OK. I’m multitasking in my head, too.”

But if people have open loops in their head and don’t deal with them, those loops become stress, he said. Veny recommended a “brain dump” — writing down everything on your mind. “It won’t take away your problems, but it’s going to make them more manageable,” he said.

Veny also challenged his listeners to ask themselves three questions daily: What am I feeling? Where is it located in my body? What do I need right now?

The three outs

In Veny’s case, he asked himself these questions before his talk: he felt nervous about the presentation, and the feeling sat at the top of his stomach. “Just that awareness alone grounded me,” he said. He also meditated, drank some water, and told himself not to worry.

Veny also talked about castles, which have moats and drawbridges designed to keep them safe from enemies. Like someone who lives in a castle, he said people

should be intentional about their boundaries and who and what they let inside. That means keeping boundaries around things like smartphones, social media and the news.

How to tell if someone else is struggling?

Veny discussed the three outs: out of character, out of nowhere, and out of the group. Examples of each would be someone who is uncharacteristically late for meetings, someone who spontaneously starts crying, and someone who isolates from friends and family.

‘Help me understand’

Don’t give advice to the struggling person, Veny said.

“One good thing you can say is ‘Help me understand.’ Another good thing you can say is ‘How can I support you?’” he suggested.

Veny said his time as a mental health patient helped him realize that when health care workers show their humanity, vulnerability and weaknesses it’s a sign of strength. Working through anger, grief and fear can help leaders become successful, he said. “Learn to chase it, and work with it, and be an example for others,” he added. vhahn@chausa.org

Kogan, a keynote speaker at CHA’s 2023 Catholic Health Assembly, is a motivational speaker who focuses on emotional fitness and well-being, the founder of Happier Inc. and the author of Happier Now, Gratitude Daily and The Awesome Human Project

She immigrated to the United States at age 13 as a refugee from the former Soviet Union and became a founder and executive at five startups and tech companies. Then, she burned out.

Now, she said she helps people become “awesome humans,” giving them the tools they need to care for themselves so they can care for others.

Lesson of burnout

Kogan said burning out taught her a powerful lesson: you can’t give what you don’t have.

“If you want to give the care that you all give, if you want to serve the mission that you all have for a long time in a sustainable way, it means you have to put your self-care and your emotional fitness at the top of your list,” she said.

Kogan defined emotional fitness as “creating a supportive relationship with yourself, your thoughts and your emotions.”

She said research shows that among workers if colleagues have better relationships with themselves, those on their team have a better chance of improving as well. The opposite is also true, she said. If someone is depleted and stressed, that stress affects others.

Check in, fuel up

Kogan shared two specific ways to practice emotional fitness: the self check-in and the mini fuel-up.

Like one would check in with a colleague, patient, friend or family member, she said people should ask themselves how they are feeling. “Especially when you acknowledge your difficult feelings or uncomfortable feelings, you’re able to experience them for a shorter amount of time and with less intensity,” Kogan said. “And at the very foundation of this practice is this idea of creating a more supportive relationship with yourself.”

To explain the mini fuel-up, Kogan compared humans to cars. “Your car needs fuel to do its job of being a car, right? You need energy to do your job of being a human,” she said.

to do my job. I know what my patients need, and I can’t provide that for them.’”

Rebuilding trust

It’s important to address moral injury because when clinicians feel distressed, patients are less likely to feel satisfied with their interactions with them, and they’re less likely to follow directions and have good outcomes, she said.

Moral injury is also “wildly expensive,” Dean said. She cited a Mayo Clinic article published in February 2022 that estimated that $260 million in excess health care costs come from burnout-related turnover among primary care physicians and $4.6 billion in lost productivity and costs to replace physicians.

To move forward, Dean said hospital leadership and federal agencies need to

rebuild trust with health care workers who felt betrayed during the pandemic.

‘A unifying purpose’

Dean suggested that clinicians and health care workers “flip the script” and ask administrators what they are doing to help clinicians so they can focus on patient care. She also urged clinicians and administrators to break down imaginary barriers between them and ask how they can help one another.

“In health care, we need to come together as a community to emerge from this pandemic with new language and new ways of thinking about where to go from here,” she said. “We won’t agree on everything all the time, but we have a unifying purpose.”

vhahn@chausa.org

The simple practice means taking a 10- to 20-minute break for a walk outside, having a chat with a colleague, inhaling some deep breaths or pausing for prayer. Kogan urged going outside and stepping away from all screens to disconnect and refuel.

Kogan encouraged Assembly participants to make well-being and self-care a daily priority. “I want you to pause and remember that we’re all connected, that your self-care gives you the ability to give care to others,” she said. “Because if everyone makes this commitment to our emotional fitness and our well-being, think of what is possible. Think of the meaningful impact and meaningful connections we can then create with others.”

vhahn@chausa.org

Mike Veny, a corporate wellness specialist, discusses his three outs theory of detecting whether a colleague is struggling. He said to look for behavior that is out of character, out of nowhere and out of the group. Veny was a keynote speaker at the 2023 Catholic Health Assembly.

Dr. Wendy Dean, a featured speaker at the 2023 Catholic Health Assembly, talks about the research she and another physician have done on moral injury among health care workers. Dean said the health care sector needs new language and new ways of thinking to deal with moral injuries.

Kogan

CHA celebrates the contributions of young leaders making their marks in ministry

By KATHLEEN NELSON

Though their chosen fields are diverse, the 10 individuals in the 2023 class of Tomorrow’s Leaders have in common drive, intelligence and vision — attributes that would ensure success in any field. Fortunately, a desire to use their gifts to benefit others and advance the common good led them to careers in Catholic health care. CHA’s Tomorrow’s Leaders recognition celebrates their achievements and the potential of these individuals, all of whom were age 40 or younger at the time of their nomination by colleagues.

John R. Albright Jr. Director of Home Care and Georgia Infirmary, St. Joseph’s/Candler Health System, Savannah, Georgia

With a mother and sister who worked in nursing homes and a wife who is a nurse, John Albright Jr. says he “learned from compassionate, caring, empathetic individuals and wanted to go from there.” He found his niche as director of home care and the Georgia Infirmary in the St. Joseph’s/ Candler Health System.

The historic infirmary was founded in 1832 as the first hospital in the nation to care for African Americans. Today it manages health care and supportive social services for about 1,200 elderly and disabled Georgians through one of Georgia’s Medicaid waiver programs. The infirmary’s main campus in Savannah includes an adult day care facility, a primary care clinic and case management services. Program participants qualify for nursing home care in southeast Georgia, but are able to safely remain in their homes and community with the case management and supportive services. The home health division provides skilled nursing, therapy and social work services through three regional offices in southeast Georgia.

When Albright took charge in September 2018, he identified significant areas for improvement in home health and infirmary operations. Albright helped guide restructuring of staff and operations and the upgrading of software to streamline procedures. Over four years, the departments erased deficits and became positive financial contributors.

“It’s easy to get siloed,” says Albright, 40. “So, I think establishing relationships and completing the integration of our departments into the St. Joseph’s/Candler Health System helped a lot. We can cover the entire continuum of care. We want to help people at any point in their life. Health care here knows no boundaries.”

“In mission-directed fields, leadership requires more than work ethic and talent,” says Edward O. Henneman Jr., chairman of the board of trustees of the Georgia Infirmary. “It requires genuine commitment to mission and a sense of compassion and devotion. It requires uncompromising ethics and a sound moral foundation. It is in these less tangible areas that John leads all of us.”

Elliott Bedford Director, ethics integration

Ascension Indiana Ministry Market, Indianapolis

Ascension Kansas Ministry Market

Elliott Bedford helps guide Ascension’s discernment by contributing to strategies that encourage dialogue on issues such as social justice, care of the poor and vulnerable, addressing the social determinants of health, and promoting and defending the right to life. His inspiration comes in part from his wife, Theresa, “a nurse by training, who always helps me stay grounded in the practical realities of health care,” says Bedford, 38.

possible. He also leads in the integration of the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services into policy and a monthly teleconference on ethics, which has expanded nationally throughout Ascension.

He helped found Ethos, a journal of ethical reflections, case discussions, art, poetry and personal essays from Ascension Indiana’s ethics committee. To train next-generation ethicists, Bedford created a summer intern program for undergraduate students, several of whom have pursued graduate degrees and jobs in Catholic health care. Bedford’s next goal is to assist in developing and implementing consistent, systemwide standards for clinical ethics services.

“Elliott is a person of faith and a servant leader who focuses on advancing the mission, values and goals of the organization and on the development of others, helping to empower them to grow and excel in their own roles,” says Dan O’Brien, a member of the Ascension Sponsor, the system’s ministerial juridic person, and CHA’s sponsorship and canon law advisory council. “He shines the light on others, not on himself.”

Dzenan Berberovic

Chief philanthropy officer

Avera Health, Sioux Falls, South Dakota

philanthropy efforts. The system’s combined philanthropic support averaged $17.7 million a year between 2016 and 2020. Under his guidance, the Avera Foundation increased funds raised to more than $46.6 million in 2022. Major gifts have increased by 35% since Berberovic led the transition from fundraising based on events to a relationship-based model.

“This work is a team sport,” Berberovic says. “It takes partners who believe in our work, not just benefactors. We have clinical experts, administrators, nurses and nurse managers who are comfortable joining us for gift conversations and sharing their stories from the bedside. They knock it out of the park every single time.”

Berberovic also guided a $30 million campaign to support construction of a wing to Avera Behavioral Health Hospital that includes the first behavioral health urgent care in the Sioux Falls area.

“I love the Catholic Church, and Ascension works to put the church’s mission into practice in tangible, meaningful ways.”

Grounding ethics in practical applications, Bedford has played a part in guiding Ascension’s ethics programs in his home market and nationally since 2014, introducing a proactive approach to integrating ethical decision-making into discussions of plans of care with patients, family and staff. He has contributed to procedures for embedding ethics team members and resources in hospitals in the Indiana market so that the ethical dimensions of care are addressed as close to the bedside as

After her husband was killed in the Bosnian civil war, Emira Berberovic fled the country with her 3-year-old son, Dzenan Berberovic. They lived in Germany for six years, much of it in a refugee camp run by women religious. The pair emigrated in 1998 to Sioux Falls, where Emira Berberovic worked two jobs to make ends meet.

Dzenan Berberovic earned a full scholarship to the University of South Dakota. He majored in public relations. “The scholarship showed me the importance of giving back and how generosity can change someone’s life,” says the 34-year-old. “When I was in college, I aspired to work in philanthropy, rarely believing that I would lead fundraising efforts for an organization the size of Avera.”

He joined Avera Health in 2017 and was promoted to chief philanthropy officer in March 2020 with a charge to complete the unification of Avera Health’s disparate

“His welcoming personality and collaborative leadership have transformed the Avera Foundation from many separate foundations into a single entity ready to use leading-edge approaches to address real problems for the persons and communities who turn to us for care,” says Bob Sutton, president and chief executive of Avera Health.

Jessica Darnell

Vice president and chief nursing officer

Ascension Saint Thomas Midtown, Nashville, Tennessee

Jessica Darnell, 38, has filled several leadership posts at Ascension Saint Thomas Midtown in her 11 years there. Among the most challenging was being director of the intensive care unit during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’ve seen Jessica navigate the most complex and sensitive matters with thoughtfulness, an analytical approach and grace,” says Fahad Tahir, senior vice president, Ascension, and ministry market executive, Ascension Saint Thomas, part of Ascension Tennessee. “Whether it’s resource

“Nursing leadership is simply about nursing the nurses, similar to nursing a patient.”

— Jessica Darnell

Jessica Darnell, vice president and chief nursing officer at Ascension Saint Thomas Midtown in Nashville, Tennessee, gets a COVID-19 vaccination from a colleague. Darnell was director of the hospital’s intensive care unit during the pandemic.

constraints or complex clinical program consolidation, Jessica focuses on front-line caregivers first and leads with an emphasis on trust.”

Much of the input she sought out from front-line nurses and doctors was incorporated in the design of the ICU in the new surgery and critical care tower, which opened in October.

“Every choice we made was informed by our associates and physician partners,” she says. “Watching the tower come to life exactly as we had planned and seeing the delight of our caregivers was a fantastic feeling.”

Promoted to chief nursing officer in 2021, Darnell is intentional about developing nurses along the career continuum from students to nurse leaders. She launched a nurse intern pilot program that brings nursing students into the culture at Ascension Saint Thomas Midtown and prepares them for a smooth transition into a nursing residency program. The program is credited with the campus having retained 86% of its nurse interns as staff nurses in 2022, up from a 69% retention rate for student nurses in 2020. The nurse intern program has expanded to Ascension Saint Thomas West Hospital and is scheduled to begin at Ascension Saint Thomas Rutherford in nearby Murfreesboro.

“Nursing leadership is simply about nursing the nurses, similar to nursing a patient,” Darnell says. “It’s a wonderful feeling to watch our nursing leaders identify a problem, apply creative solutions and then watch them achieve results that make the work environment better.”

Lauren King

a passion,” says King, 40. “When I’m not at work, I’m helping friends, family members or random strangers I meet at my kid’s soccer games figure out what they love to do and how to get there.”

The pandemic took a heavy toll on the well-being of clinicians, and staff retention has suffered across the health care industry. King leads Ascension’s national “internal mobility team,” offering clinical associates experiencing burnout support and coaching and help with exploring career opportunities within the health system.

In addition, King revamped a program so career advisers can work more closely with employees whose jobs are ending, assisting them in identifying other opportunities within Ascension.

She helped launch an initiative aimed at increasing staff diversity by introducing high school students in underserved communities to clinical professions requiring degrees and/or certification and entry-level opportunities in health care.

leagues for each other’s gifts and contributions for the better of the whole.

current employees feel valued and appreciated, so we ensure these folks don’t want to look anywhere else. It’s not just important for me as a leader but for the communities we serve to keep programs close to their homes.”

Tyler Limbaugh

Regional integration officer

Ascension Florida and Gulf Coast, Jacksonville, Florida

A civil engineer by training, Tyler Limbaugh experienced a pair of aha moments nearly simultaneously in 2012. He took a Lean Six Sigma course to learn a teambased approach to removing operational waste and reducing variations in process. At the same time, he was converting to Catholicism and attended a career fair where Ascension and The Resource Group were represented.

Senior

director, talent strategy and innovation

Ascension, St. Louis

Since joining Ascension in 2017, Lauren King has sought to increase employee retention by helping employees connect with their health care calling, explore career opportunities and advance in their chosen field.

“Helping people find careers they love is

King shaped programs offering personalized career development and support to people beginning their work lives. More than 3,500 associates at various points on the career spectrum from entry-level staff to leadership have connected their health care calling to Ascension’s mission and gotten assistance navigating employment benefits through these human resource offerings.

She also helped launch a pilot program called Vocare, from the Latin word meaning “to call.” It offers debt-free education assistance for entry-level associates seeking a certificate or degree in health care. Vocare was expected to assist 200 employees in its first year.

King says: “People expect something very different out of employers than they did even five or 10 years ago. Instead of fighting that change, we need to move with it. My leaders are advocates of this mindset, which is a great fit for me.”

“Lauren’s attention to detail, thoughtful and thorough approach, strong communications skills, dedication and flexibility are exemplary,” Jonathan S. Nalli, a former Ascension senior vice president and ministry market executive for Ascension Indiana, says. “Lauren is a joy to work with.”

Dr. John Kohler Sr.

Southern Illinois regional chief medical officer and president of SSM Health’s regional medical group SSM Health, St. Louis

A father to four boys, ages 7-12, Dr. John Kohler Sr. approaches his dual role for SSM Health in Southern Illinois much like family dynamics, instilling respect among col-

“What I’m most proud of is the relationships I’ve built, because that underlies everything else. People want to feel heard and be part of something bigger,” says Kohler, 38. “We’ve worked on improving communicating and listening. All the clinical improvements are a result of the teams doing that work. And our teams do awesome stuff.”

Kohler is board certified in pediatrics and neonatal-perinatal medicine. Since joining SSM Health in January 2022 as chief medical officer for Southern Illinois, he has added the role of president of the regional medical group. Under his leadership, SSM Health’s regional medical group has increased the rate of annual wellness visits among its Medicare patients aged 65 or older to 67% from 51% and the rate of colorectal screening for uninsured and underinsured patients to 62% from 57%. Its 30-day rate of hospital readmissions for all patients older than 18 has dropped to 9.82% from 15%.

Kohler is a consensus builder. His colleagues say he is transparent and authentic, delivering clear feedback with empathy.

“He can quickly build trust and respect with his peers, explain the why and encourage change for the greater good,” says Damon R. Harbison, president of SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital in Centralia, Illinois.

It’s hard to recruit clinicians to practice in rural areas, so Kohler puts a high priority on retaining SSM Health clinical staff in Southern Illinois.

“Being in a rural market adds a layer of complexity,” he says. “We’ve been fairly successful, and that goes back to the relationship building and adding high-caliber recruits. But it’s also about making sure our

When he met with The Resource Group representative, “I knew the opportunity was aligned with the mission I wanted to serve,” says Limbaugh, 40.

After almost 10 years of racking up success at The Resource Group, Ascension’s resource and supply chain management organization, Limbaugh has been promoted to the position of regional integration officer, leading supply and resource management within Ascension’s Florida and Gulf Coast markets.

Limbaugh began his career at The Resource Group as part of a team responsible for guiding the integration of health care facilities new to Ascension and The Resource Group. He supported the integration of seven hospital systems comprising 30 acute care facilities, more than 250 clinics and six senior care facilities located

Tyler Limbaugh, regional integration officer for Ascension Florida and Gulf Coast, in Jacksonville, Florida, with his wife, Meaghan, and children. Limbaugh’s work has included helping to guide the integration of health care facilities new to Ascension and The Resource Group, the system’s resource and supply chain management organization.

across the United States. His efforts produced supply cost savings of 8% to 18% at each facility. He was promoted to lead all supply chain operations across Ascension St. Vincent’s in Jacksonville. By concentrating on value, he netted $9.5 million in savings, four times the group’s annual goal.

In 2020, the first year of the pandemic, supplies of personal protective equipment were scarce. His team fully met caregiver needs in Ascension’s Florida and Gulf Coast ministries, according to David Edwards, The Resource Group’s southeast regional operating officer.

As a member of the board of directors for Catholic Charlies of the Diocese of St. Augustine, Florida, Limbaugh served as a liaison for Ascension’s efforts to assist Catholic Charities in redeveloping a shuttered Catholic school in a historic Black neighborhood in North Jacksonville. The refurbished building houses a food pantry and a clinic operated by Ascension.

“One would recruit an entire workforce of Tyler Limbaughs if one could. He is a virtuous servant leader, a highly competent and effective executive, and a joy with whom to serve.”

“One would recruit an entire workforce of Tyler Limbaughs if one could,” says Thomas J. Van Osdol, executive vice president and chief mission integration officer for Ascension. “He is a virtuous servant leader, a highly competent and effective executive, and a joy with whom to serve.”

Brian Li

System director of community health strategic initiatives

CommonSpirit Health, San Francisco

Brian Li believes that healthy communities are built as much by tending to unmet social needs as medical needs. Li guides CommonSpirit Health’s community health projects to bring together clinical and community partners and provide them with granular data that pinpoints unmet needs and tracks the success of customized interventions.

as health-related social needs, and demographic data, with clinical data harvested from electronic health systems to pinpoint unmet social and medical needs warranting investment and intervention.

Li maintains that a window into unmet social needs is a core piece of what has been missing in understanding a patient’s frame of reference and ability to follow medical advice. “Unless our patients meet their basic needs, they probably won’t focus on health,” says Li, 34. “That’s one of the big goals: using more social needs data to better address our patients’ health as well as the needs of the community.”

Li leads the systemwide work to capture health equity information as a quality measure in compliance with new and revised requirements from The Joint Commission.

“He has been a force of nature to drive strategic and innovative collaborations with colleagues within CommonSpirit and community partners at the local, state, regional and national levels,” says Tom Kopfensteiner, senior executive vice president and chief mission officer at CommonSpirit. “Through compassion, humility and inclusion, Brian has garnered trust and authentic relationships with diverse stakeholders.”

Zachary Melick Director of business transformation PeaceHealth, Vancouver, Washington

Zachary Melick’s career started in hospitality, where he acquired project management skills; veered through clinical startups, where he honed agile thinking; and brought him to PeaceHealth, where he found purpose.

Until joining PeaceHealth in 2018, “I never found the work fulfilling because it didn’t align with my core values,” says Melick, 38. “A purpose-driven setting may be as healing for me as it is for those we serve.”

Health had to increase its temporary workforce from 300 to over 1,000, resulting in a substantial negative impact on net earnings. Melick worked with PeaceHealth’s talent acquisition team to develop protocols that reduced monthly expenditures for temporary labor to $8.5 million in 2022 from $35 million in 2021.

tility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity) really resonates with me,” Melick says. “It’s become a running joke that these are the requirements for my team to take on work, and it’s my favorite part of the job. I love to bring teams, processes and data together to sort and solve complex problems, revealing new ways of working that ultimately become the standard.”

Ratish Kumar Mohan Biomedical engineer Hospital Sisters Health System, Springfield, Illinois

After completing a master’s degree from the University of Texas at Dallas, Ratish Kumar Mohan spotted a job listing for a biomedical engineer in the Hospital Sisters Health System.

A native of India, Mohan knew nothing about the Midwest, but the listing intrigued his mother, a devotee of pranic healing. The movement’s spiritual leader, Choa Kok Sui, took his inspiration from St. Francis of Assisi. St. Francis is the patron of the Hospital Sisters of Saint Francis, the founding sponsors of the Hospital Sisters Health System and Hospital Sisters Mission Outreach.

“I felt the connection and the calling” to the global health ministry, says Mohan, 34, who joined Hospital Sisters Mission Outreach in 2016.

Mohan coordinates equipment and medical supply donations from HSHS hospitals and other Midwestern facilities for shipment to clinics and hospitals in lowresource communities across the globe.

He matches donors with recipients with a goal of preventing the waste and hardship that occurs when unwanted and unusable medical equipment is sent to facilities in developing nations that may not have the resources to use it or repair it. He personally ensures every item is wanted and in perfect working order with all operating manuals and no missing parts when it goes into an overseas shipping container.

He collaborates with technicians and engineers at the receiving facilities to familiarize them with operation and upkeep of complex medical equipment. His job has taken him to Togo and the Solomon Islands, where he helped onboard equipment at a hospital, and to Tanzania, where he participated in a comprehensive needs assessment to help update hospital technology.

Li used his technical skills to build financial models, execute partnership contracts, and structure data tools, dashboards and collaborations that are essential to the success of CommonSpirit’s partnership with Pathways Community HUB Institute. The young partnership currently unites community-based service providers in addressing the social and medical needs of people in four western states.

He also leads development of CommonSpirit’s Social Needs Analytics Platform. The platform merges nonclinical data, such

His first task was to improve operational resilience. Following a model he structured, cost of care was reduced by 1.5% in the first year. In 2020, the business transformation office was redeployed to manage the COVID-19 response. He and his team developed a data- and process-driven model that used continuous improvements to manage policy, staffing and vaccine rollout.

When pandemic-related staffing shortages resulted in an industrywide reliance on expensive temporary contract labor to meet the needs of its communities, Peace-

The enterprise intelligence dashboards and management tools he and his team created continue to evolve, now supporting endemic-era operational improvements.

“Zach has a rare combination of emotional and logical-mathematical intelligence,” says Liz Dunne, PeaceHealth president and chief executive. “He has an amazing ability to bring humanity to data that reminds us of our shared calling to serve the common good.”

Among his ongoing projects is driving PeaceHealth’s operational excellence plan around workforce management, capacity and care management, caregiver engagement and patient experience.

“The old military acronym VUCA (vola-

“Ratish treasures all people, especially the poor and vulnerable. He cultivates compassion. He excels at bringing people together,” says Steve James, founder and chief executive of KenyaRelief.org. “The last time I spoke with him, he told me, ‘My work gives me great joy.’ His qualities are infectious. He treats everyone with dignity and respect.”

“What keeps me with Mission Outreach is the scope of the opportunity we have to increase access to health care around the world,” Mohan says. “By doing so, we’re a small piece in a big spectrum of global health equity.”

Ratish Kumar Mohan, a biomedical engineer with Hospital Sisters Health System in Springfield, Illinois, coordinates donations from HSHS hospitals and other Midwestern facilities for shipment to clinics and hospitals in low-resource communities worldwide.

— Thomas J. Van Osdol

Zach “has an amazing ability to bring humanity to data that reminds us of our shared calling to serve the common good.”

— Liz Dunne

ASSEMBLY 2023

Chicago’s Saint Anthony nurtures connections with Chinatown

By JULIE MINDA

There is a growing population of Chinese immigrants on Chicago’s south side, and many of them have been disconnected from the health system. Saint Anthony Hospital, a ministry facility that serves the south and west sides of Chicago, has been working to close that divide.

At a session that was part of CHA’s virtual Catholic Health Assembly, Saint Anthony’s Genessa Schultz-Brown and Xiao Jessica Fan explained that by being intentional about establishing a presence in Chicago’s Chinatown, learning about community members’ needs and developing programming to meet those needs, the hospital has built trust with many Chinese Americans there. This has helped to improve the immigrants’ access to care. Schultz-Brown is the hospital’s senior director of community development and Fan is community outreach manager.

Fan said Saint Anthony was the first hospital in the area to invest heavily in such programming, and many community members now “speak very highly of our work” and feel comfortable accessing services at Saint Anthony.

Unique challenge

According to the Chicago Chinatown Community Foundation, Chinatown was established in its current location in 1912 and has over 20,000 Chinese residents. That foundation says the area is a popular tourist destination with over 150 restaurants, gift

Listening to Our Voices

From page 1 Hudson

said that while the videos showcase the diversity of the system’s workforce, they also are a reminder of what unites the staff. “When you have those moments in your work where you have an opportunity just to be really centered on who your colleagues are and the common mission that you share with them, it is a beautiful experience,” Hudson said.

St. Luke’s is promoting and sharing the videos on LinkedIn, Facebook and other social media.

Hudson noted that St. Luke’s footprint covers about 22,000 square miles in a part

Vision statement

From page 1

had become clear about a year ago as CHA’s governing board and leadership team were preparing to launch the planning process for the association’s next strategic plan, that it was necessary to put forth a vision for where CHA is heading, before a plan could be developed.

She said given the immeasurable change brought about by the global pandemic and other drivers, CHA is in a “time of transformation,” and setting a vision for the future was necessary. So, last fall, CHA’s board appointed a Vision Committee that has worked with consulting agency Tenfold Health over the ensuing nine months.

The committee and agency solicited the input of hundreds of CHA stakeholders, engaging them in discernment and discussion about the vision. That engagement involved surveys, interviews, focus groups and other discussions with CHA board members, board alumni, women religious, member sponsors, ministry executives, association executives and external partners and experts, among others. Based on

shops and grocery stores.

Fan explained that Chicago’s Chinatown is a rather insulated community. Many residents, especially senior adults, speak Mandarin or Cantonese Chinese, and almost no English. Many community members are unfamiliar with the U.S. health care system, added Fan. It is entirely different from that of their native China. Such community

of Texas that is rich in cultural diversity. The system’s workforce and volunteers number 21,000.

She said an objective of the campaign is to “build trust and transparency” in St. Luke’s. To that end, she said, the videos reflect candid and unscripted comments made by workers to a series of questions. Though the videos are edited, she said the viewpoints shared are authentic.

“We did not even provide employees with the questions in advance of the interviews,” she said. “We gave them some sense of the project and told them we just want to hear their stories. We want to hear how their personal and professional stories intersect.”

One purpose

One of the first videos released features Enrique Contreras y Martinez, director of mission at St. Luke’s Health — The Wood-

their learnings, the committee and agency crafted the statement and checked that it resonated with members of the ministry.

CHA’s board approved the statement just prior to the assembly.

Call to action

Just after his installation at the assembly as 2023-2024 CHA board chair, Damond Boatwright issued a call to action to the ministry “to unite around our new vision statement.”

Boatwright, president and chief executive officer of Hospital Sisters Health System, told assembly attendees, “We have a higher mission in Catholic health care.” He explained that what sets the ministry’s mission apart from that of other providers is its belief that each person has intrinsic dignity and its commitment to addressing the needs of the vulnerable.

Partnered for change

Joining Sr. Mary and Boatwright on the Vision Committee that shepherded the creation of the statement were CHA 20222023 board chair Laura Kaiser; and CHA board members Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer, Dougal Hewitt, Fahad Tahir and Tina

dynamics make it a “unique challenge” to reach Chinatown residents, said Fan. She noted that these residents are an underserved population, one central to Saint Anthony’s mission to serve.

To improve access to this group, Saint Anthony’s community development team has been replicating and expanding upon an approach it has used before with other immigrant groups. It has been partnering with civic organizations to build inroads into the Chinese-American community, learning about the population and their health and social service needs, and establishing a presence in Chinatown, such as at festivals and other public events.

Cultural competency

Saint Anthony has been using the knowledge it has gained to establish its programming around improving health care access. The hospital has hired care navigators and other community development team members who are fluent in the Chinese dialects spoken in Chinatown. Those staff members now proactively connect with community members and help them understand and navigate accessing services at Saint Anthony.

Fan said because of such efforts, Saint Anthony was able to tailor a COVID-19 vaccination program for Chinese-American Chicagoans that drew in numerous community members for inoculation.

Beginning with that vaccination effort, the community development team has helped Saint Anthony to increase its hiring of people of Chinese heritage.

The team also has ensured that health care information and signage at Saint Anthony is in Chinese as well as English.

The team also is conducting cultural competency training — it hosts brown bag lunches and will use this platform to share with staff information about Chinese culture, health care beliefs common among Chinese Americans and barriers to their health care access.

Service expansion

Fan provides free health care screenings and basic information about health care access and social services during her threetimes-a-week visits to Chinatown.

Schultz-Brown said Saint Anthony is expanding access greatly — it plans to open a clinic in Chinatown next year that will offer culturally competent care, including rehabilitation, primary care and access to social service navigation.

She said in its efforts Saint Anthony is immersing itself in the Chinese-American community and this is inviting them in to receive the care and services they need.

jminda@chausa.org

lands Hospital and a native of Mexico. He talks about the language and cultural challenges he had to overcome to get an education.

“As a leader, I tell people ‘You can do this. It might not look like you can right now, but you will,’” he said in the video.

Martinez said one of the reasons he has stayed with St. Luke’s is “because of the respect that we have for others.” He said the system and its parent value the backgrounds and experiences of its workers and how the individual gifts of each enhance the whole.

“Not until we all become one can we be a transformative presence,” Martinez said. “I think CommonSpirit really encompasses this prayer of Christ himself that all will be one for one purpose.”

leisenhauer@chausa.org

Weatherwax-Grant. Kaiser is president and chief executive officer of SSM Health; Bentzen-Mercer is executive vice president and chief administrative officer of Mercy; Hewitt is executive vice president/chief mission and sponsorship officer of Providence St. Joseph Health; Tahir is senior vice president, Ascension, and ministry market executive, Ascension Saint Thomas, part of Ascension Tennessee; and WeatherwaxGrant is senior vice president, public policy and advocacy for Trinity Health.

During the assembly, committee members shared insights on the vision statement’s meaning. Bentzen-Mercer explained that the use of the word “we” reflects the collaborative nature of the work that is ahead. Not just ministry organizations but also partners outside of Catholic health care will be instrumental in the work, she said.

Weatherwax-Grant focused on the words “bold change” in her reflection. She said the committee envisioned radical, transformational changes to systems, including the U.S. care, payment and delivery systems.

Leading indicator

Hewitt spoke of how the reference in the

new vision statement to “human flourishing” called to mind how the founders of ministry systems and facilities responded to the needs of their times in line with their commitment to ensuring that people could flourish more abundantly.

Kaiser elaborated that human flourishing is related to people’s ability to reach their full potential. “This is what we mean when we talk about health equity. It is the idea that all people have an equal opportunity to achieve their God-given purpose,” she said.

Kaiser added: “Through our shared Catholic ministry, we are in the business of advancing human flourishing.”

Tahir said that as the committee had been deliberating during the development of the new statement, members reflected on past ministry milestones, such as CHA’s leadership in advocating passage of the Affordable Care Act.

He said that looking at the history of CHA shows “we lead — we are the leading indicator of where health care ought to go in our country.” The vision statement, he said, will help point the way to that future.

jminda@chausa.org

Andrea Foster, a family nurse practitioner, shares her perspective in a video that is part of St. Luke’s Health’s series called Listening to Our Voices. The Houston-based system is sharing the videos, which spotlight the diversity within its workforce, internally and on its social media channels.

A Saint Anthony Hospital representative staffs a vaccination signup table at an establishment in Chicago’s Chinatown. The hospital built up its presence in the community during the pandemic — and has continued increasing its work there since — to foster relationships and trust.

Damond Boatwright becomes chair of CHA Board of Trustees

Damond Boatwright was formally installed as chair of the CHA Board of Trustees on June 13 in a ceremony during the association’s annual Assembly.

Boatwright is president and chief executive of Hospital Sisters Health System, based in Springfield, Illinois. Before that, he was regional president of SSM Health Wisconsin.

CHA members gather

From page 1

days. She and other leaders of the association urged CHA’s membership to use the statement as a compass to navigate through challenges and opportunities.

“I am certain that guided by our vision, the Catholic health ministry will elevate its prophetic voice and we will help lead the transformation of health care in this country,” Sr. Mary said.

‘Join me again in rising’

ment reform, on innovative ways to expand access to quality care and on their shared mission to serve the vulnerable.

“Join me again in rising with faith and courage to advance a better future — a future where we see improved access to health care for all people; a future where we find new ways of overcoming the challenges in front of us; a future where we continue to advance the tradition of Jesus’ healing ministry,” Boatwright urged.

Challenges, responses

for health systems to make patients aware of the redetermination process.

Sr. Mary lauded the efforts of CHA members to confront ongoing crises. She mentioned that several have become leaders in sustainability. Some have committed to achieving zero net carbon emissions and zero waste over the next 10 to 15 years.

Impicciche

The Membership Assembly also elected Joseph Impicciche, chief executive of Ascension, as 2023-2024 vice chair and chairpersonelect and three new board members. Laura Kaiser, president and chief executive of SSM Health, will become speaker of the Membership Assembly. Kaiser was the 2022-2023 CHA chair.

The Assembly was the stage for the transition of chair of CHA’s board. In a rousing address that followed his installation into the post for 2023-2024, Damond Boatwright acknowledged that the health care sector faces financial, workforce and other headwinds.

He reminded Assembly attendees that the foundresses of Catholic health care systems were mostly immigrants who tended to the sick and poor in homes and on the streets. Their efforts led to what has become a $4.2 trillion industry that comprises networks of hospitals, clinics and other facilities across a continuum of care.

In her remarks, Sr. Mary too discussed challenges confronting health care providers. She noted that while the COVID-19 crisis has waned, inflation, workforce shortages and the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dobbs case that returned decisions on abortion to the states are among the factors disrupting health care.

“On every front, CHA has been working on your behalf to advance efforts that protect human dignity and ensure the common good,” Sr. Mary said.

Earlier this year, Sr. Mary noted, CHA launched the Essential Community Impact initiative. “Through this effort we will develop statistical measures that will provide a clear understanding of the value of Catholic health care and how the health of communities is improved because of Catholic health’s presence,” she said.

Connecting with the vision

Sr. Mary commended Boatwright and Laura Kaiser, SSM Health president and chief executive officer, for leading the process that resulted in the new vision statement. Kaiser was CHA chair as the statement was being developed.

The new trustees are:

Eduardo Conrado, president of Ascension.

Dr. Marijka Grey, system vice president of ambulatory transformation and innovation, physician enterprise, of CommonSpirit Health.

Cheryl Matejka, senior vice president and chief financial officer of Mercy.

CHA members reelected three trustees: John Capasso, executive adviser, senior care, at Health Dimensions Group; Sr. Sharon Euart, RSM, executive director and canon lawyer with the Resource Center for Religious Institutes; and Bob Sutton, president and chief executive of Avera Health.

The terms of three board members ended June 30. They are: Dr. Rhonda Medows, president of population health management at Providence St. Joseph Health; Dougal Hewitt, executive vice president/chief mission and sponsorship officer at Providence St. Joseph Health; and Gabriela Saenz, senior vice president, corporate services at CHRISTUS Health.

KEEPING UP

PRESIDENTS/CEOS

Laureen Driscoll to chief executive for Providence St. Joseph Health’s South Division, from interim executive.

Chris Klay, president and chief executive of HSHS St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in O’Fallon, Illinois, is expanding his leadership role to now include the position of president and chief executive of HSHS St. Joseph’s Hospital in Highland, Illinois. Klay succeeds John Ludwig

Jim Sheets to group president of Centura Health, part of CommonSpirit Health. He will oversee CommonSpirit Health hospitals and clinics in Denver; Fort Morgan, Colorado; and Utah. He was chief operating officer for acute care for Intermountain Healthcare.

Christopher Caserta to chief executive of St. Louis-based Ascension Living, the Ascension organization that includes senior housing services. He was vice president of strategy and marketing in the continuing care division of Trinity Health.

Boatwright, president and chief executive officer of Hospital Sisters Health System, told the Assembly attendees that they are now the pioneers of Catholic health care. He called on them to focus on pay-

Project1_Layout 1 6/7/23 10:21 AM Page 1

For example, she mentioned the association’s efforts to raise awareness and provide education about the Medicaid eligibility redeterminations that began this spring. Some analysts expect millions of Americans to lose coverage in the process, many in spite of still being eligible. In response, CHA expanded its Medicaid Makes It Possible campaign with a Protect What’s Precious initiative that includes a tool kit of resources

Kaiser noted that her time as head of the CHA board had given her the chance to more deeply connect with others in the Catholic health ministry and its shared mission. She said she hopes the vision statement will foster similar connections across the ministry.

“My prayer today is that our new vision statement inspires each one of you and deepens your call to serve,” she added. leisenhauer@chausa.org

Conrado

Driscoll

Grey Klay

Matejka Caserta