Catholic Health World - June 1, 2022

Lassiter to lead CommonSpirit 7 Executive changes 7 Stocking dignity, canned goods 8 PERIODICAL RATE PUBLICATION

JUNE 1, 2022

VOLUME 38, NUMBER 9

Catholic partners tackle housing for chronically homeless people

“

By JULIE MINDA

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FMOLHS focuses on active listening and empathy for staff, patients

The model we’re creating is not just about housing. Giving that additional care provides the ability to create healthier outcomes.”

Knights of Malta volunteer dentist Dr. Charlie Zammit treats a walk-in dental patient with the assistance of volunteer Nikki Branson in April. The Malta Dental and Medical Clinic is in the Center for the Works of Mercy in Detroit, part of Catholic Charities of Southeast Michigan.

— Dr. Stacy Garrett-Ray

Providence program builds bridge to behavioral health care, recovery

By PATRICIA CORRIGAN

Getting help or navigating a health care system can be difficult for individuals with substance use disorders or chronic mental illness, especially those who are homeless.

In Oregon that’s where Better Outcomes thru Bridges comes in.

The program started in Portland and is known colloquially as BOB. It knits together Providence Health & Services programs and outreach with communitybased resources to provide practical assistance and a way forward for some of the most vulnerable patients in the region. The health system, part of Providence St. Joseph Health, has expanded the Better Outcomes thru Bridges model to all its markets in Oregon.

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Alex Gillow-Wiles/Better Outcomes thru Bridges

Two-plus years into the five-year Healthy Housing Initiative pilot, Catholic Charities agencies and their partners in Catholic health care and Catholic dioceses are making headway building up networks to address the housing, health and social service needs of vulnerable community members. In addressing these issues, many of the collaborators are making progress toward increasing the supply of permanent supportive housing in their communities.

Launched in January 2020, Catholic Charities USA’s Healthy Housing Initiative brings together local Catholic organizations in five pilot cities: Detroit; Las Vegas; Portland, Oregon; Spokane, Washington; and St. Louis. The Catholic health system partners are Ascension in Detroit;

Johanna Deeb, an outreach specialist with Providence Health & Services’ Better Outcomes thru Bridges program, hands out hygiene supplies at a partner event in Clackamas County, Oregon, where unsheltered people are able to do their laundry.

Building global health capacity via virtual connections

By JULIE MINDA

Dr. Gregory Green talks with Mary Katharine, a patient in his family medicine practice at the St. Francis Community Health Center in Monroe, Louisiana. The center is taking part in the “We Listen.

We Heal.” initiative underway across the Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System.

By LISA EISENHAUER

Dr. James Craven remembers back in his residency days when he and other doctors-in-training would use all the tools they had available to diagnose patients with the most complex medical conditions and then watch as those patients were seen by a highly respected veteran physician.

“He’d just ask the Craven simplest of questions: Where are you from? Who were your parents? What kind of work did you do? And like clockwork, he’d hit the diagnosis,” recalls Craven, a vascular surgeon who is Continued on 2

In Piura, Peru, in July 2020, Sisters of Bon Secours distribute medicines to families of people with COVID-19.

Members of Bon Secours Mercy Health’s global missions team helped train these sisters and others on isolation and treatment protocols through videos shared on WhatsApp and reinforced via Zoom meetings.

When the pandemic upended the way U.S. Catholic health ministries conducted their global health work, leaders of international mission departments and teams realized they did not have to be in-country to help their partners in the developing world mount a response to COVID-19.

Around April 2020, Camille Grippon used her living room in Marriottsville, Maryland, as a makeshift studio to produce three infection prevention videos in Spanish for Peruvians.

Grippon directs global health for Bon Secours Mercy Health system. Grippon She and her husband, a humanitarian aid worker with a knack for videography, produced shorts on COVID-19 facts and myths, symptom identification and precautions for Sisters of Bon Secours and others doing field work to use to minimize infection risk.

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CATHOLIC HEALTH WORLD June 1, 2022

Active listening

ever someone came for healing, Jesus would ask: “What do you want me to do for you?”

“So, he allowed them to be part of their healing and the way he did that was by asking the questions and allowing them to be part of the conversation,” Guarisco says.

FMOLHS, he says, is adopting that same approach to healing through “We Listen.

We Heal.” “Listening, to us, is a way in which we bring about our humanity and our connectedness,” he says.

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president of Franciscan Health Physicians.

The physicians group is part of Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System.

Craven says the uncanny diagnostic skills of the doctor who helped train him made him realize that if care providers take time to question patients and listen intently to their responses “they’ll tell us exactly what’s wrong with them.”

That conviction is among the reasons Craven says he is an avid supporter of the “We Listen. We Heal.” initiative that FMOLHS has rolled out in recent months to encourage active listening between leaders and staff and between staff and patients.

“For me, it’s about putting the patient at the center of the medical enterprise and focusing on their experience,” Craven says.

“There’s nothing more sacred than that physician-patient relationship, and the cornerstones are compassion and empathy.”

Internal, external goals Hunter Richardson, FMOLHS’s chief human resources officer, says the system’s leaders hope the initiative will improve communication with — and foster greater empathy for — patients, leading to better care outcomes, higher patient retention and goodwill that attracts new patients.

They also hope it will build Richardson employee engagement and counter burnout.

“We know that if team members feel valued and listened to and heard that they are more likely to replicate that behavior with our patients,” Richardson says.

Nicole Terry is a former communications director at Our Lake of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge, the system’s largest hospital. She is now in a similar role with Revive, a consulting firm that helped develop “We Listen. We Heal.”

Terry says several factors propelled the initiative. Among them are the stresses on health care workers and the strained relationships with some patients caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and protocols; staffing shortages and burnout; the advance of telemedicine; and the push by retailers, technology companies and private equity firms “to insert themselves into the health care space.”

Terry points to studies that show how listening impacts patient care. One she references was published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine in July 2018.

It found that clinicians seldom listen to what patients have to say and, when they do, often quickly interrupt. The study concludes: “Failure to elicit the patient’s agenda reduces the chance that clinicians will orient the priorities of a clinical encounter toward specific aspects that matter to each patient.”

To find out what people who live within the system’s service area want from their health care providers, FMOLHS conducted surveys and held listening sessions last summer. “Overwhelmingly what was interesting is that patients said they just want to feel heard,” Terry says. “They want to feel understood and a part of their health care process.”

The survey findings prompted FMOLHS executives to make an organizational commitment to active listening, that is, making a conscious effort to hear, understand and retain what’s being shared.

Staff buy-in In the run-up to the launch of “We Listen. We Heal.”, Richardson says FMOLHS shifted its leadership development focus to active listening and how to connect with staff. Leaders are expected to give their team members at least weekly opportunities to be heard by rounding with them, holding group discussions or having one-

Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System has this image in rotation in a social media campaign to promote awareness of "We Listen. We Heal.," its active-listening initiative. The public-facing part of the initiative also includes billboards, TV spots and a playlist on the music streaming service Spotify.

on-one conversations.

“It’s not necessarily new for everybody,” Richardson says. “Some of our leaders were already doing this, but it formalized the expectation we have for our leaders.”

"Overwhelmingly what was interesting is that patients said they just want to feel heard. They want to feel understood and a part of their health care process.”

— Nicole Terry The wider internal initiative kicked off in January with listening sessions, training opportunities and resources on active listening techniques made available for staff across the system, which has about 11,000 full-time employees at facilities in Louisiana and Mississippi. At an event just for physicians, the system brought in as a speaker Dr. Abraham Verghese, a renowned professor at the Stanford University Medical School who advocates for patientcentered care.

Before FMOLHS began promoting the initiative to the public early this year, the system previewed for staff all of the promotional materials including social media postings, billboards and TV spots for “We Listen. We Heal.”

Craven says he believes that the initiative’s internal launch achieved its goal of getting buy-in from staff. He jots down some of the comments he hears from other clinicians on sticky notes as reminders of the campaign’s impact. Those comments include: “What an honor to be part of this organization.” And, “I truly love my job.”

Says Craven: “I think it’s just been a rough two years, and this was an opportunity to refocus on why we chose this profession.”

Mission connection Richardson says engagement surveys have shown that staff feel a strong connection with FMOLHS’s faith-based mission.

He adds many workers are excited by how “We Listen. We Heal.” promotes that mission.

Peter Guarisco Jr., FMOLHS’s senior vice president of mission integration, is part of the system’s Mission, People, Culture Committee that is Guarisco guiding the initiative. He says active listening ties in seamlessly with the system’s mission to escort patients on their paths to wellness.

“It’s an organic connection to our mission and our ministry, because without listening, we are not able to form relationships, so we’re not able to accompany others,” Guarisco says.

He points out that in the Gospel, when-

‘Caring for our own’ In addition to ads and postings that spotlight FMOLHS’s focus on listening, the public-facing “We Listen. We Heal.” campaign includes a webpage with resources related to the initiative, such as tips on how to prepare for a medical appointment; profiles of care providers; and a link to a channel on the streaming service Spotify with a playlist in harmony with the initiative’s theme.

Terry says feedback from the public on “We Listen. We Heal.” has been positive; FMOLHS is still figuring out what metrics to use to measure its impact.

As the patient-facing work advances, the staff outreach that is part of the initiative is ongoing. System leaders are hosting forums at care sites on topics that change each quarter. The current focus is on what recognition and rewards staffers find motivating.

Says Craven: “The pandemic has strained our workforce like nothing (else) and to maintain that strong culture within Franciscan Missionaries, I think we not only need to care for our patients, but at this time, given the challenges we face, we need to make sure we’re caring for our own team members.” leisenhauer@chausa.org

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June 1, 2022 CATHOLIC HEALTH WORLD

Providence outreach

8,600 people throughout Oregon with contacts through Providence facilities, street and camp outreach, behavioral health emergency response and school programs.

The 18-member Better Outcomes thru Bridges team includes a licensed clinical social worker, bachelor-level outreach workers and certified peer support specialists, many of whom have experienced homelessness and are in recovery from a substance dependency.

Staff coordinate access to and between primary and specialty care providers treating Better Outcomes thru Bridges patients at Providence facilities and link clients to mental health care and substance dependency treatment offered by communitybased providers.

The Better Outcomes thru Bridges staff stay in contact with their patients for the long haul, providing case management and connecting the unsheltered to service providers that can help transition them into stable housing. In addition to mental health support, partner agencies assist with transportation, food and other necessities.

Big tent Becky Wilkinson, the manager of Better Outcomes, says the program’s community partnerships with schools and with agencies active in community mental health, public health and housing number in the hundreds, “and we’re Wilkinson always looking for ways to be more creative, to bridge any gaps and extend our reach.”

Many patients find their way to the Better Outcomes program through the outreach workers who meet them in emergency departments in six of Providence Oregon’s eight hospitals, in the system’s inpatient behavioral health and medical units and in outpatient clinics. The program takes refer-

Becky Wilkinson/Better Outcomes thru Bridges

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Better Outcomes thru bridges staffers Tammy Wilkins, left, Jon Sherman, center, and a student intern deliver food, tents, hygiene items and other donated supplies to people living outside.

rals from shelters and first responders.

To raise awareness, Better Outcomes staffs booths at select locations, including a shower and laundry facility for unsheltered people run by a rural Oregon nonprofit.

Better Outcomes staff make follow-up patient welfare calls from their posts at Providence’s regional behavioral health call center in Portland. Some program staff are posted in Providence primary care and specialty clinics.

The program sends outreach specialists into elementary, middle and high schools to mount a crisis response in a rural district that previously had a high rate of youth suicide and little to no behavioral health support. The outreach workers function as case managers, helping students access mental health and other services including food assistance.

Last year, the program touched about

Street cred Wilkinson shares the story of one patient, a homeless man hospitalized about 18 months ago for treatment of a systemic infection acquired through intravenous drug use. He detoxed during his hospital stay and DJ Alex, a peer support specialist, arranged for the patient to stay with a family member Alex when he left the hospital. She accompanied him to 12-step meetings and checked in on him regularly to support him in his recovery.

Wilkinson says the man came back to the hospital to thank his caregivers and tell them about his new job and his repaired relationship with his children.

Alex thought the man could be a good support to another of her hospitalized patients who struggled with substance dependency. The two men met and discovered through conversation that they had known each other while both were living on the streets. The former patient looked so healthy that the hospitalized man hadn’t recognized him.

“Seeing how good his friend looked and felt after being clean for over one and a half years gave that patient the courage to want to do the same thing,” Wilkinson says, adding the man is working on his recovery.

Alex has been a peer support specialist on the Better Outcomes team for about two years. Previously, she worked as an alcohol and drug counselor. Before that, she did prison time.

“I’ve got tattoos all over, I’m real loud and I’m real matter-of-fact,” she says.

“When I walk into the hospital room of

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someone admitted for medical issues that stem from drug use, I tell them I have a criminal background, and that after living as a drain on society, I got the opportunity to go to prison. Yes, it was an opportunity.

I got cleaned up there, got my head on straight, and decided when I got out, I’d do something different.”

As Catholic Health World went to press last month, Alex was about to receive a master’s degree in human services, and she had just celebrated 10 years of sobriety. “After all the destruction earlier in my life, I give back now, and I love my job,” she says.

When Alex meets with patients, her goal is to build a relationship with them. “I see if I can help with housing, food, clothing or any resources I can connect them with, including mental health services, a primary care physician, a phone or a bus pass. When they are discharged, I follow them until they don’t need me anymore.”

A ‘we’ problem Not every patient who might benefit from participating in the Better Outcomes program is open to changing their life.

“That’s OK too,” Alex says. “We meet people where they are. If someone is happy living in a tent, I ask if they need resources for a needle exchange or extra blankets or food.

I plant the seed that help is available, and whether they take it is on them. Either way, we’ve got to help each other. This is a ‘we’ problem.”

Since the program’s founding in 2016, emergency department use rates have decreased by 45% for individuals who engage with Better Outcomes' outreach specialists.

Early in the pandemic, before counties set up “COVID motels,” the team rented motel rooms and provided food, clothing, medications and support for the COVIDpositive homeless population in Portland.

Its school outreach specialists delivered food and other essentials to low-income students in rural Yamhill County. Better Outcomes operates an ongoing motel program for homeless families and adults who need a safe place to stay in Yamhill County.

It’s personal Team members have provided de-escalation training to some partners, including staff of a warming shelter, tiny home villages staff and several community action agencies.

Other recent projects include: A grant helped provide monthly onsite services with LoveOne Community events in Clackamas County, where more than 1,000 people received hot meals, hygiene supplies, tents, tarps, socks and warm clothing.

Street outreach workers provided food, supplies and clothing in summer and winter for about 700 people who live outside throughout Oregon.

Working with Providence’s property management and real estate department, program team members offered housing alternatives including stays in the system’s tiny home village, and support and supplies to individuals living outdoors on Providence properties.

Team members have active partnerships with three additional tiny home villages sponsored by churches, working onsite each week at Agape Village and Beacon Village in Portland and Peace Trail Village in Newberg.

A grant has provided funding to run a motel shelter project this year in Yamhill County.

Looking ahead, Better Outcomes has applied for a grant that would allow it to expand the outreach and peer support program to additional specialty behavioral health clinics throughout Oregon.

“This program means everything to me,” Wilkinson says. “As somebody with my own mental health issues, I can relate to the feeling of being alone, and I never want anyone to feel like that. It’s so important to me to do this work.”

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CATHOLIC HEALTH WORLD June 1, 2022

Updates from Healthy Housing Initiative pilot cities Detroit

Catholic Charities of Oregon is constructing this complex, called the Annex, on its campus in Portland.

The development will have 27 units of permanent supportive housing and long-term transitional housing, where people who are coming out of homelessness can stay for up to two years. Residents will have access to health and social services.

Healthy Housing

Las Vegas Partners include Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada, CommonSpirit Health and its Dignity Health subsidiary and the Diocese of Las Vegas.

Dignity Health covers the salary of a case manager who helps the residents of a 120-unit Catholic Charities complex to access wraparound services. The complex is located on Catholic Charities’ campus, so — either at the housing complex or at the Catholic Charities office — residents can access food aid, employment help, social services and behavioral health care.

The partnership is exploring how to finance the construction of additional permanent supportive housing.

From page 1

CommonSpirit Health in Las Vegas; Providence St. Joseph Health in Portland and Spokane; and Mercy and SSM Health in St. Louis.

Together, the partners are implementing strategies to reduce chronic homelessness in part by providing this vulnerable population with case management and ready access to social services and medical and mental health services. The organizations say their efforts are particularly attuned to the plight of vulnerable people from minority populations.

“Our goal is to reduce chronic homelessness, but we know we need to provide more than just housing” because of the interrelationship between housing instability, health and the social determiGarrett-Ray nants of health, says Dr. Stacy Garrett-Ray, Ascension senior vice president and chief community impact officer. “The model we’re creating is not just about housing. Giving that additional care provides the ability to create healthier outcomes.”

Building a foundation Curtis Johnson, vice president of housing strategy for Catholic Charities USA, says that organization began the Healthy Housing Initiative pilot on the strength of the positive outcomes its Spokane agency recorded after Providence Sacred Johnson Heart Medical Center provided health care services and the Catholic Charities agency in Spokane stood up social services in Catholic Charities’ housing complexes. “This made an incredible impact,” says Johnson.

Another impetus for the program’s creation was research Catholic Charities USA was aware of that showed that housing alone is insufficient to stabilize the lives of people experiencing chronic homelessness. Permanent supportive housing — complete with easily accessible wraparound social and health services — greatly increases the odds that an individual or family will achieve housing stability.

In 2019, Catholic Charities USA selected five pilot cities where local agencies and dioceses had the capacity to address the needs. Catholic Charities’ goal is for each pilot city to reduce chronic homelessness by 20% by 2025, connect at least 35% of newly housed clients to primary and behavioral health services and decrease homeless clients’ hospital readmission rates by at least 25%.

Since then, the Catholic Charities agen-

Partners include Catholic Charities of Southeast Michigan, Ascension and Ascension St. John’s Hospital of Detroit and the Archdiocese of Detroit.

The group has opened the Center for the Works of Mercy, a facility where Catholic Charities clients can get case management services; food; job training; and medical, dental and eye care at a free clinic.

To increase affordable housing stock, the partners are working to redevelop a shuttered school near St. John’s Hospital into a 46-unit complex with on-site medical and behavioral health care.

The group has secured a pledge of nearly $3 million from the city of Detroit for the complex, plus a grant from the Tersigni Family Foundation and awaits the approval of low-income tax credits essential to financing.

Portland, Oregon Volunteer Kimberly Nava organizes a shoe display for the clothing closet at the Center for the Works of Mercy in Detroit in April. The center is operated

by Catholic Charities of Southeast Michigan.

cies, Catholic health care providers and dioceses in each city have been developing place-specific strategies for linking housing, health care and social services.

In some of the cities, the partners have long-standing relationships and already had started along this path; in others the connections are new, or the partners have changed their priorities or approaches.

Housing stock The Catholic Charities agencies have been working to identify property that can be redeveloped as affordable housing complexes, with some units designated as permanent supportive housing. While some of the housing will be new construction, partners also are considering redeveloping as housing diocesan schools, convents or other church buildings.

Partners include Catholic Charities of Oregon, Providence St. Joseph Health and the Archdiocese of Portland.

Catholic Charities of Oregon has 270 affordable housing units under construction, with 43 of these classified as permanent supportive housing units.

Separate plans call for the construction of two buildings on church property to create 61 permanent supportive housing units for the chronically homeless and a “respite light” program where homeless people discharged from the hospital can recuperate.

Catholic Charities built a tiny-home village called Kenton Women’s Village in Portland and hopes to build another at Portland’s National Sanctuary of Our Sorrowful Mother.

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, affordable housing is generally defined as housing that costs the occupant no more than 30% of their income.

Clients of Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada eat a meal in the agency’s dining area in February. In partnership with Catholic health facilities, the organization provides food, shelter and comprehensive services to vulnerable people.

All residents in the Catholic Charities facilities will have access to a resident services coordinator to help them secure food aid, benefits, counseling, financial education, employment assistance, transportation and other programs. Those in the permanent supportive housing units can receive intensive case management.

Spokane, Washington Partners include Catholic Charities of Eastern Washington, Providence St. Joseph Health and the Diocese of Spokane.

This Catholic Charities agency has developed 29 properties since 2012, housing more than 2,500 people.

The most recent project is the Gonzaga Family Haven, a redeveloped building on the campus of the Catholic Gonzaga University and Gonzaga Preparatory School. The Catholic Charities building has 73 units of permanent supportive housing.

There is substance abuse counseling, peer support for recovery, adult education, employment readiness training, health and wellness programming, primary care, transportation aid and connections to education.

St. Louis Partners include Catholic Charities of St. Louis, the St. Patrick Center, SSM Health, Mercy and the Archdiocese of St. Louis. The St. Patrick Center is the largest provider of services for the homeless in St. Louis. Barnes-Jewish Hospital of St. Louis, a secular nonprofit, also is involved with the group through the Hospital to Healthy Housing initiative it helped found.

The initiative fields homeless service coordinators employed by the St. Patrick Center. The coordinators work out of emergency departments of three large hospitals, helping patients with nowhere to go upon discharge find a shelter bed or other immediate accommodation. They connect patients with social services and advocate for their ongoing medical care.

United Healthcare joined the Hospital to Healthy Housing group, and is providing money to house qualifying Medicaideligible patients.

Catholic Charities plans to work with the archdiocese to identify unused church property for development as housing, and it is exploring other options for expanding affordable housing stock in the community, and this includes permanent supportive housing.

Johnson explains that permanent supportive housing is a specific type of affordable housing. Under this model, people who were chronically homeless and, once housed, are at risk of returning to homelessness get rent subsidies as well as intensive case management.

At existing and planned housing complexes, the Catholic Charities agencies participating in the pilot program aim to establish on-site social services and primary care and mental health clinics. Each housing complex has or will have an in-house case manager, sometimes called a navigator.

This individual assesses clients’ needs and helps clients access social services and health care services. The case manager coaches clients in the pursuit of goals such as reconnecting with family members or finding work.

The Healthy Housing Initiative also wants to ensure Catholic Charities clients living in single family residences have ready access to health and social services.

Catholic Charities USA gave $50,000 grants to each of the five partnerships and has given direct support and technical support to each of the five pilot agencies. In some communities, the Catholic health systems involved in the work are providing

June 1, 2022 CATHOLIC HEALTH WORLD

Many people who are

additional grant funding. Pilot participants are securing low-income tax credits and housing vouchers and pursuing state and local grants as well as financing and additional aid from HUD.

Priced out Rose Bak, chief program officer for Catholic Charities of Oregon, says the concerns that the Portland partners are tackling are complex and intractable. The homeless population in Oregon is disproportionately large compared to other Bak U.S. states, according to a March 2019 study by ECONorthwest, an independent economic consulting firm.

Not surprisingly, Bak says the severe lack of affordable housing in the Portland area has a direct correlation with the growing number of unhoused individuals and families. But it is not the only factor. Homelessness can be the result of — or contribute to — mental health crises.

She notes that people of color and veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder are disproportionately represented among homeless populations.

Bak says many people who are homeless — and especially people of color — fear and mistrust medical providers. And so, they don’t seek timely care, which can worsen their health concerns.

Shelley Yoder is director of population health program integration at Providence

homeless fear and mistrust medical providers. And so, they don’t seek timely care, which can worsen their health concerns.

— Rose Bak

Case manager Emily Corey takes a client to get clothes and food at St. Patrick Center, a homeless services provider in St. Louis. Corey was employed by St. Patrick Center. The position is funded by SSM Health.

Corey spent much of her workweek at SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital as part of the Hospital to Healthy Housing program, which is connected with Catholic Charities’ Healthy Housing Initiative.

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St. Joseph Health in Portland. She says when people who are homeless are discharged from the hospital and return to the streets or encampments, it is difficult for them to follow post-hospitalization treatment plans and restore their health. A facility planned as part of the Healthy Housing Initia- Yoder tive would provide semi-private accommodations where patients who are homeless could recover and find respite after hospital discharge.

Anthony D’Agostino is chief executive of the St. Patrick Center, the largest social service provider for the unhoused in St. Louis.

He says that given super-heated housing markets and high inflation, it is increasingly difficult for people to find housing they can afford — and it is a growing challenge for agencies like Catholic Charities to acquire new housing stock, given the escalating costs.

Stable housing is an equity issue, says Ben Wortham, Catholic Charities USA vice president of behavioral health integration.

He explains that people of color often make up a disproportionately large percentage of homeless populations and a disproportionately small percentage of the population in affordable housWortham ing complexes. They also are more likely than white people to return to the streets from housing. Wortham says all organizations serving housing insecure populations should assess what percentage of their clientele are people of color, as compared to the local population, and address inequities in program reach.

Game changer Paul Propson, chief executive for Catholic Charities of Southeast Michigan, says it is essential to be intentional about increasing access to health and social services in the communities where the most vulnerable live.

The Detroit Healthy Housing Initiative partners are planning to open a permanent supportive Propson housing complex in a predominantly Black, low-income community. That community now lacks sufficient access to social services and to some health care services. People who live in the complex will have on-site access to case management, wellness programming and some health care services. The surrounding community will have access to the wellness and health care services.

Bryan Walrath, vice president of operations for SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital, says since the St. Louis Healthy Housing Initiative group has been developing its programming and putting it in place, the majority of its clients have secured stable housing. Walrath He says about 75% of the 150 clients served

by Healthy Housing programming in 2021 achieved this level of security.

He says the program is “about getting the right resources at the right time to the right people.” jminda@chausa.org

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CATHOLIC HEALTH WORLD June 1, 2022

Global health

demic created a cascade of opportunities.

We now see a dual pathway of in-person and virtual global health,” with a reduced focus on in-person presence.

The pandemic hit the U.S. before Peru. The U.S. team used knowledge and resources from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Bon Secours Mercy Health to assist the La Esperanza clinic and the communities the system works with in preparing for COVID’s onslaught.

Grippon and her team translated and supplied numerous resources on infection prevention, hygiene protocols and mask use. They talked clinic staff through setting up the triage unit and devising strategies for communicating infection prevention information to community members, including the videos Grippon made.

Grippon said during pronounced COVID outbreaks Peruvian clinicians labored through a scarcity of oxygen and intensive care unit beds, and — when vaccines became available — a severe shortage of inoculations.

When COVID precautions shut down clinics and medical office visits, Grippon and her colleagues advised the Peruvian hospital team on setting up a telehealth system. It has an audio-only option for patients without video connections. This system is still in use today.

Knowledge transfer Among its works in Peru, Bon Secours Mercy Health provides financial, advisory and volunteer medical support to the Clínica Madre de Cristo, a hospital in a poor urban area in La Esperanza, as well as in impoverished areas of rural Chimbote, Piura and Huacho. The health system supports community health outreach in all these places, including on sanitation, hygiene and illness prevention.

Grippon said prior to the pandemic, it was common for her and her team to go to La Esperanza to help identify and plan approaches to address health needs there and to build relationships with local officials. Bon Secours Mercy Health clinicians provided direct medical care.

When pandemic-era travel bans were in effect, the U.S. and Peruvian teams stayed in almost constant contact through emails, Zoom and the WhatsApp technology.

Telementoring Grey said the pandemic put into overdrive Providence’s efforts to increase its emphasis on knowledge-sharing initiatives.

In Guatemala, working with partner Medical Teams International and the Ministry of Health, Providence supported the set up of a telementoring program this year.

Spanish-speaking clinicians at Providence advise and instruct Ministry of Health clinicians in Guatemala’s El Quiché region on how to conduct trainings. They are working to close gaping inequities in maternal and child health and emergency obstetrics.

In Nigeria, Providence is partnering with the nonprofit World Telehealth Initiative; Teladoc, a publicly traded telehealth company; and the Ministry of Health to build via videoconference Nigerian clinicians’ capacity around community health.

And through partnerships in Uganda with Seed Global Health, Providence has

From page 1

Much of Bon Secours Mercy Health’s global health work is concentrated in areas of Peru where Bon Secours and Mercy sisters have a long-standing presence and where abject poverty is high. (Bon Secours Mercy Health also does global health work in Haiti and South Sudan.)

Around the time she made the videos, Grippon also found herself in extensive conversations over Zoom with staffers at the 32-bed Clínica Madre de Cristo in Northern Peru’s La Esperanza district as staff set up a COVID testing area.

Grippon advised the staff on how to get COVID test kits, alcohol gel, masks, goggles and gloves. Together, Grippon and the staffers determined how best to lower infection risk in the clinic.

“You will want to close that window in your emergency department so that germs don’t come in from the triage area,” Grippon advised as she toured the space via Zoom.

Working as equals Grippon was among several ministry global health executives who spoke with Catholic Health World about how changes necessitated by the pandemic provided a proof of concept and accelerated a continued shift in approach in international mission outreach — one that favors close partnerships with providers who are citizens or permanent residents of host countries.

The goal of this approach is for mission outreach efforts to build sustainable capacity in public health and health care in under-resourced, developing countries and to do so through knowledge sharing and human-capacity building.

Well before the pandemic, the 10 members of CHA’s Global Health Advisory Council and Bruce Compton, CHA’s senior director of global health, had been encouraging a shift away from an emphasis on fly-in and fly-out mission trips. For such missions, teams of volunteers from the U.S. may pay their own travel expenses and/or be sponsored by health systems or other nonprofit entities. Such teams commonly staff temporary clinics to perform surgery or other procedures, or pitch in on building village works projects including clean water or sanitation systems.

“Guiding Principles for Conducting Global Health Activities,” a CHA resource published in 2015 and updated in 2020, emphasizes the need for partnering with host countries as equals, and asking rather than assuming what is needed.

Grippon said ministry global health teams have taken this guidance to heart and have been gradually lessening on-theground involvement of U.S. staff and volunteers while increasing support and advice directed at building the capacity of in-country teams to do the work. When travel bans between countries brought in-person aid to a halt, these teams knew how to proceed.

Grippon and another member of the global advisory committee, Brittn Grey, say their respective international mission teams dramatiGrey cally increased their use of remote technology to connect with their overseas partners and strategize a COVID response adapted to potentially resourcechallenged circumstances.

Grey is Providence St. Joseph Health’s executive director of global and domestic immersion programs. Grippon and Grey said while they expect the use of communications technology to grow in international medical missions, neither of them foresees an elimination of international mission trips.

Grey explained: “The pandemic has given us the opportunity to reevaluate.

I don’t think we understood prior to the pandemic the full potential of technology.

The explosion of telehealth during the pan-

A clinician in Opoji, Nigeria, engages with Dr. Connie Bartlett earlier this year as a part of a telementorship program from Providence St. Joseph Health and World Telehealth Initiative.

Bartlett is a pediatrician with St. Joseph Heritage Medical Group in Santa Ana, California.

contributed to a regional learning network where Providence clinicians share their knowledge of emergency medicine live with about 1,000 Ugandan clinicians at a time.

Technology equity In a February blog post about Providence’s international work, Grey described efforts to ensure advances in medicine are available to all countries, not just rich ones.

Neurologist Dr. Todd Czartoski is Providence chief medical technology officer and chief executive of telehealth. He said technology can enable providers in wealthy countries to share their knowledge and resources more efficiently with partners in Czartoski poor nations. However, he said, the barriers to using technology to extend the reach of overseas mission work are so great that Providence, like numerous other U.S. systems that prioritize global health equity, is only in the early stages of determining how best to surmount them.

While Teladoc and other for-profit companies are funding some of the needed hardware and connectivity to bring telehealth to the developing world, the infrastructure build-out has been very limited.

Plus, said Czartoski, even if telehealth connections were more widely available, many U.S.-based specialists rely on complex testing and imaging to make diagnoses. Their skillset is not necessarily compatible with the rudimentary tools available on the host country’s side of the connection.

Grey said Providence has made advocacy for technology equity a corner piece of its efforts around international capacitybuilding. “It’s imperative to advance the common good and strengthen health care systems around the world.”

Visit chausa.org/global-health/guiding-principles to access CHA resources on international health outreach. jminda@chausa.org

SPONSOR RESOURCE! CHA’s Study Guide for the Second Edition of The Pastoral Role of the Diocesan Bishop in Catholic Health Care Ministry CHA COLLABORATED WITH THE UNITED STATES CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS

in providing this resource to foster a clearer understanding of the important relationships and roles of those who are responsible for Catholic health ministries within the United States.

FRIENDS OF THE ASSEMBLY Assembly 2022 is made possible in part by generous support from:

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Contact Jacquie Vick at CHAFriends@chausa.org for information about underwriting.

March June 1, 2022 CATHOLIC HEALTH WORLD

KEEPING UP PRESIDENTS AND CEOS Ascension has made these market-level changes, effective July 1: Don King to senior vice president, Ascension, and ministry market executive, Ascension Florida and Gulf Coast. He was senior vice president, Ascension, and ministry market executive, Ascension Kansas. Kevin Strecker to senior vice president, Ascension, and ministry market executive, Ascension Kansas. Strecker was chief operating officer for Ascension Via Christi in Kansas.

Faraaz Yousuf is departing as president of Bon Secours Richmond in Virginia, to join WellSpan Health as its executive vice president and chief operating officer. Bon Secours is conducting a national search for a new market president.

King

Strecker

Yousuf

HONOR Dr. Rhonda M. Medows has been appointed to a three-year term as a member of the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission. Medows is president of population health management at Providence St. Joseph Health and chief executive of Ayin Health Solutions. She is CHA board chair for the 2021-2022 fiscal year.

ADMINISTRATIVE CHANGES

NAME CHANGE

Organizations within Vancouver, Washington-based PeaceHealth have made these changes: Dr. Sarah Garber to chief medical officer of PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center in Vancouver. Dr. Scott Foster to chief executive of the PeaceHealth Medical Group.

Ascension has renamed its health care facilities in northern Illinois. The rebranding is part of Ascension and AdventHealth’s unwinding of AMITA Health. AMITA was the joint operating company that Ascension and AdventHealth had formed more than seven years ago. Ascension retained 14 hospitals and more than 150 other care sites in Illinois previously identified as part of Alexian Brothers Health System and Presence Health. A

Garber

Foster

marketing and advertising campaign across the greater Chicago area is introducing the Ascension Illinois division.

The new names in communities where it operates are: Ascension Alexian Brothers, in Elk Grove Village Ascension Holy Family, in Des Plaines Ascension Mercy, in Aurora Ascension Resurrection, in parts of Chicago Ascension Saint Alexius, in Hoffman Estates Ascension Saint Mary, in parts of Chicago as well as Kankakee Ascension Saint Francis, in Evanston Ascension Saint Joseph, in parts of Chicago as well as Elgin and Joliet Ascension Medical Group physician practice, from Chicagoland to Kankakee

2 22 AWARDS

Recognizing Extraordinary Contributions to the Catholic Health Ministry LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD For a lifetime of contributions

SISTER CAROL KEEHAN AWARD For boldly championing society’s most vulnerable

SISTER CONCILIA MORAN AWARD For demonstrated creativity and breakthrough thinking

TOMORROW’S LEADERS HONOREES Honoring young people who will guide our ministry in the future

Dave Benner, Chief Ancillary Officer, CHRISTUS Health, Irving, Texas Jacquelyn Bombard, Executive Director, Federal Relations, Providence St. Joseph Health, Renton, Washington Amanda Bottolfson, Director, Medical/Surgical, Swingbed, ICU, and PCS Staffing, Avera Sacred Heart Hospital, Yankton, South Dakota Ashley Brand, System Director, Community Health, Integration & Housing, CommonSpirit Health, San Francisco, California

Sr. Maureen McGuire, DC, Former Executive Vice President and Chief Mission Integration Officer, Ascension, St. Louis, Missouri Dr. Alexander Garza, Chief Community Health Officer, SSM Health, St. Louis, Missouri

Mary Anne Sladich-Lantz, Senior Vice President, Mission and Formation, Providence St. Joseph Health, Renton, Washington

Andrew G. Ochs, Regional Director, Mission Integration, SSM Health, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Sarah Reddin, Vice President, Ministry Formation– Mission Integration, Ascension, St. Louis, Missouri Andrew Ritz, Vice President, Operations, Mercy Hospital, Durango, Colorado Heather Runnels, Vice President, Patient Care Services, Our Lady of the Lake Ascension, Gonzales, Louisiana Ryan E. Stuhlreyer, Vice President, Service Line Strategy, Bon Secours Mercy Health, Richmond, Virginia Adrienne Webb, Director, National Communication, Issues and Reputation Management, Providence St. Joseph Health, Renton, Washington

ASSEMBLY 2022 | JUNE 5 – 7 | CHAUSA.ORG/ASSEMBLY Join us to renew our commitment to Jesus’ healing mission, to reimagine how we care for our communities and colleagues, and to rejoice in the amazing work of our Catholic health ministry.

7

Wright L. Lassiter III to take top post at CommonSpirit Health

Lassiter

Dean

Wright L. Lassiter III will succeed Lloyd H. Dean as the chief executive of CommonSpirit Health on Aug. 1.

Lassiter is moving to the top post at CommonSpirit from Henry Ford Health, where he has been president and chief executive since 2016. Henry Ford Health, based in Detroit, has 33,000 employees across a system that includes four hospitals and an academic medical center. Its 250 locations throughout Michigan include three behavioral health facilities and centers for cancer care, orthopedics and sports medicine.

Chicago-based CommonSpirit is one of the nation’s largest nonprofit health systems with more than 150,000 employees, 140 hospitals and over 1,500 care sites in 21 states.

“CommonSpirit plays a special and indispensable role in communities across America,” Lassiter said in a press release from the system announcing his hiring.

“I’m honored to have the opportunity to lead this organization, which is a driving force for access to high-quality, essential services for all.”

Dean announced last fall that he would retire this year after 22 years as a national leader in the Catholic health care ministry.

He has been at the helm of CommonSpirit since it was formed in February 2019 by the merger of Dignity Health and Catholic Health Initiatives, creating the largest Catholic health system in the nation. He led Dignity Health before that. CommonSpirit had two chief executives until Kevin E. Lofton, the former head of CHI, retired in June 2020.

Lassiter chairs the board of the American Hospital Association and is a past chair of America’s Essential Hospitals, an organization of over 300 safety net hospitals. At Henry Ford Health, he oversaw two mergers and the system’s global expansion with the opening of partner hospitals in Saudi Arabia and India in 2020. Before coming to Henry Ford, he led the expansion of the Alameda Health System in Oakland, California, as the chief executive of that public health system.

“Wright’s accomplishments and career focus embody CommonSpirit’s vision of health care as an essential aspect of every person’s life,” CommonSpirit board member and incoming board chair Chris Lowney said in the system’s press release.

“His experience and success with complex health systems positions him well to lead our organization on our mission to deliver better health to all Americans.”

Sr. Barbara Hagedorn, SC, president of Catholic Health Care Federation, CommonSpirit’s sponsoring body, said that throughout his career “Wright has demonstrated that he shares our commitment as a Catholic health system to improving the health of those we serve, especially those most in need, and advancing social justice for all people.”

CommonSpirit said a key area of focus for Lassiter will be supporting the health and well-being of the system’s nurses, physicians, and staff.

8

CATHOLIC HEALTH WORLD June 1, 2022

Clients shop food pantry much like typical grocery store Market to HOPE’s supporters include CHRISTUS Health

By LISA EISENHAUER

C

atholic Charities of Southeast Texas served nine families at its Market to HOPE in January 2020, the month the grocery-modeled food pantry opened. Over the next two months, as the closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic pulled the financial rug out from under many people, requests for assistance from the market grew.

Christopher M. Robertson, director of Market to HOPE until this spring, said the number of people coming for groceries every month was in the thousands for the rest of the year.

The demand has eased as the economic impact of the pandemic has waned, yet it is still high. In a three-month period in late 2021, Robertson said Market to HOPE tallied 5,523 people making grocery pickups. “The need was so much bigger than we had anticipated, so we keep Tuesday and Saturday curbside drive-thru for anybody who needs it,” Robertson said.

The HOPE in the food pantry’s name stands for Help Other People Eat, an urgency that is particularly sharp in and around Beaumont, where Catholic Charities of Southeast Texas is based.

Verified need The extent of the need is one reason that the CHRISTUS Community Impact Fund and CHRISTUS Southeast Texas Health System gave Catholic Charities a $100,000 grant for Market to HOPE last year. In addressing food insecurity, the fund was responding to community health needs assessments led by CHRISTUS Health’s community benefit program to identify unmet health needs through surveys, focus groups and key stakeholder interviews.

Nadine Monforte, a manager of the community benefit program at CHRISTUS Health, said food insecurity was a top concern in the Southeast Texas community assessment. Survey responses showed 21.5% of the people in the communities the system serves in the region don’t always have enough food. The nonprofit network Feeding Texas reports that statewide 13% of households sometimes go hungry.

So clients can easily assemble a basket with the components of a well-balanced diet, the shelves at the Market to HOPE food pantry in Beaumont, Texas, are color coded to match the MyPlate diet recommendations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Clients can take as much fresh produce home as they'd like.

Monforte said Market to HOPE was one of five food programs that got a total of $450,000 in CHRISTUS Community Impact Fund grants last year. “We call them investments because they are focused on improving the health of our communities,” she said.

To get the grants, Monforte said the operators have to show that their programs are sensitive to the culture and ethnicities of their clients. She said that sensitivity is reflected in many ways, such as the food a pantry stocks, how it distributes that food and how it educates recipients on nutrition and food preparation.

“If the programs are not culturally responsive, potential clients may actually decline from enrolling or fully utilizing that support,” Monforte said.

Maintaining clients’ dignity Chara Stewart Abrams is director of mission integration and community benefit at CHRISTUS Health. She and Monforte visited Market to HOPE in November when the grant was officially announced. She said it was impressive to see the lengths that Catholic Charities was taking to respectfully welcome clients to the pantry and to guide them through an intake process that includes getting information about their financial means and health issues.

“Helping people have their

Fr. Leonard Ogbonna, manager of spiritual care for CHRISTUS Southeast Texas Health System, blesses the hands of Christopher M. Roberston, second from left, and other workers at an open house at Market to HOPE last fall. Robertson was director of the pantry from its opening until this spring.

store except there’s no cash that exchanges hands.”

Warehouse coordinator Jose Gutierrez stocks shelves at Market to HOPE. Catholic Charities of Southeast Texas opened the grocery-like food pantry in 2020.

“Helping people have their dignity in the lowest points in their lives in these situations is, I think, one of the most important things we can do as human beings."

Chara Stewart Abrams dignity in the lowest points in their lives in these situations is, I think, one of the most important things we can do as human beings,” Abrams said.

Robertson agreed. He said Market to HOPE is modeled on a grocery store so clients can have much the same food shopping experience as other consumers.

Clients can sign up for a monthly food pickup at the pantry’s drivethru or for a time to come into the pantry. Those who opt to come inside get to fill their own carts.

While there are caps based on household size on the amounts of some items that clients get, clients can take home as much produce as they’d like.

The pantry’s setup reflects its focus on nutrition. Shelves are color coded to match the MyPlate diet recommendations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture so clients can easily assemble a basket with the components of a well-balanced diet. The volunteer staff are trained on food options to suggest to clients based on health concerns.

Dried beans and pigs’ feet The pantry stocks staples such as rice, bread and milk. Its

other offerings are determined by what’s available from suppliers and what’s in demand by clients. Its clients come from communities that have large African American and Hispanic populations, whose preferences drive the pantry’s culturally appropriate offerings.

Robertson noted, for example, that he was told by one family that they and other Hispanics typically don’t eat beans from a can. Since then, he said, the pantry has kept a full shelf of dried beans.

Another client thanked Robertson profusely for having mustard greens and pigs’ feet in stock.

“I’ve never eaten pigs’ feet, but she could not have been more over the moon that she came in and got that,” he recalled.

He said he scanned for pigs’ feet on the lists of available items submitted by the pantry’s suppliers.

After Market to HOPE clients make their selections, they wheel their carts to a checkout counter. “It’s for inventory purposes but we check you out and we bag your stuff, put it in the grocery cart and you leave,” Robertson said. “There’s zero difference from a regular grocery

Beyond nourishment Robertson added services after the market opened. When he wondered why some clients were getting little or no assistance from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, volunteers told him that many of the people in the community had reading challenges and were probably filling out the necessary forms incorrectly.

He set up a monthly visit to the food pantry by a SNAP worker and invited clients to have their forms reviewed. The visits have meant more food assistance for many families. “Everyone I’ve spoken to so far has gotten an increase or an approval when they’ve previously been denied,” Robertson said.

The food pantry also is linking clients to Catholic Charities’ asset building case management program. That program takes a comprehensive look at families’ finances — including income, expenses and credit score — to create a sustainable financial plan.

“Now the programs are kind of merged together, where people are receiving food but they’re also learning how to manage the money that they’re saving by not having to buy their own food, which in theory would be transitional,” Robertson said. “You use the market until you don’t need the market anymore.”

Probably no one is more impressed with the success of Market to HOPE in just two years than Robertson. He was working for Catholic Charities’ disaster planning, emergency response and utility assistance efforts when he pitched the idea for the grocery-like food pantry. He said he was eager to be a part of setting up the market; his supervisor decided to put him in charge.

“I had a great position. I loved my job,” he said. “I had never planned on being the one who ran Market to HOPE, but it was the best decision she ever made for me.” leisenhauer@chausa.org