Faith Community Nurses

Caring for the body, mind and spirit of people in CommonSpirit Health communities.

Within CommonSpirit, six faith community health networks support faith community nurses, or FCNs, in the communities they serve. With financial support from a Mission and Ministry Fund Grant, our faith community health networks are collaborating to: • Establish high-quality documentation of the work of FCNs throughout

CommonSpirit. • Create a playbook that will guide others who want to do this work. • Design a dashboard that will share meaningful information about the impact of faith community nursing programs. • Develop new FCNs by offering a

Foundations of Faith Community Nursing course in partnership with Creighton

University, to begin in January 2023.

Faith community nursing is the specialized practice of professional nursing focusing on intentional care of the spirit as the foundation of the practice. The delivery of care and the relationship established promotes whole-person health and prevention or minimization of illness within the context of a faith community, faith- or community-based organization, or the larger community.*

Many FCNs use the places where faith communities gather or the premises of community service organizations as their places of work and practice. They are licensed nurses who may collaborate with health ministers, clergy, health care providers and community-based organizations to care for the body, mind and spirit of those they serve. Some FCNs

*Adapted from Faith Community Nursing: Scope and Standards of Practice, third edition, 2017.

Noteworthy Numbers

119

Nurses and Health Ministers

154

Participating Organizations

19,689

Hours of Service

109,180

Patient Contacts

Left to right: Faith community nurses teaching classes in CPR; our Midwest Division was awarded the Eastern Nebraska Office on Aging’s Spirit of Aging Award in the Medical/ Health Care category.

are paid for all or some of their work, but many work in unpaid roles.

FCNs help create healthier communities and they also deliver bottom-line value. The work of FCNs contributes to: • Better management of chronic health

conditions

• More successful patient transitions

from hospital to home

• Reduced inpatient readmissions • Fewer urgent care and emergency

department visits

• Reduced health disparities

The Faith Community Health Network in our Midwest Division documented savings of $473,638 in costs to individuals, families and health systems as a result of services provided during 2021.

As we look ahead, we hope to further expand FCN capabilities across CommonSpirit. This includes making the necessary training for FCN more widely available and sharing best practices with across CommonSpirit to ensure every location has the opportunity to provide these very valuable services. •

3 2

1 4 5

Faith Community Health Networks

1 Center for Faith Health Ministries -

Faith Health Partnership, Arizona: Denise Viker, Coordinator

2 Faith Community Nursing/Health

Ministry Program, California Central Coast: Jean Raymond, Coordinator 3 Mercy Faith and Health Partnership, Greater Sacramento Area, California: Susan Taylor, Coordinator

4 Penrose-St. Francis Health Services

Faith Community Nurse Program, Colorado Springs, Colorado: Velda Baker, Coordinator 5 Faith Community Health Network, Midwest Division: Nicki Ayer and Susan Ferrone, Coordinators

6 Congregational Health Ministries,

Washington: Coordinator position open

“This is a truly collaborative effort. We are educators and mentors for each other through all the challenges and rewards of faith community nursing. We’re blessed to have grant support from the Mission and Ministry Fund to help expand this work across CommonSpirit.”

— Lois Lane, System Vice President, Mission Integration