Healing Hospital
Running head: HEALING HOSPITAL: A DARING PROGRAM
Healing Hospital: A Daring Program
Mary Manning
Grand Canyon University
Foundations of Spirituality in Health Care
HLT 310V
Patricia Mullen
August 28, 2011
Healing Hospital: A Daring Program In today’s hospital environment, our main focus is placed on technology, medications and treating a diagnosis. Often patients are wheeled from one examination to another with little personal interaction received from their healthcare provider. Patients are hooked up to monitors alarming endlessly due to staff being either unavailable to silence them or not having the compassion to comfort. Technology has become so dominant in hospital settings that we have lost sight of providing the loving care aspect of our profession. Dehumanizing our patients will not heal them; our current practices could actually cause more harm. Healing Hospitals are now surfacing around the country with the concept supporting a culture of caring. This does not mean that technology has been pushed aside; a Healing Hospital incorporates technology as well as the whole patient, body, mind and spirit. To understand the concepts of a Healing Hospital, we can examine the work of Erie Chapman, founding president and chief executive officer of the Baptist Healing Trust in Nashville, Tennessee. On October 1, 1998, Chapman took the reins of The Baptist Hospital System and unbeknownst to him, many financial and emotional challenges would be awaiting. He defines them as tornados, one being an actual tornado causing structural damage to the hospital earlier that year and the other being an inside (corporation) financial tornado. The latter would be more challenging for him, leading a company that is $83 million dollars worse off than what he was told (Chapman, 2007). His first step was to develop a mission and value statement for the hospital. According to Chapman, “A Healing Hospital is a place characterized by thousands of small and
Healing Hospital: A Daring Program
Mary Manning
Grand Canyon University
Foundations of Spirituality in Health Care
HLT 310V
Patricia Mullen
August 28, 2011
Healing Hospital: A Daring Program In today’s hospital environment, our main focus is placed on technology, medications and treating a diagnosis. Often patients are wheeled from one examination to another with little personal interaction received from their healthcare provider. Patients are hooked up to monitors alarming endlessly due to staff being either unavailable to silence them or not having the compassion to comfort. Technology has become so dominant in hospital settings that we have lost sight of providing the loving care aspect of our profession. Dehumanizing our patients will not heal them; our current practices could actually cause more harm. Healing Hospitals are now surfacing around the country with the concept supporting a culture of caring. This does not mean that technology has been pushed aside; a Healing Hospital incorporates technology as well as the whole patient, body, mind and spirit. To understand the concepts of a Healing Hospital, we can examine the work of Erie Chapman, founding president and chief executive officer of the Baptist Healing Trust in Nashville, Tennessee. On October 1, 1998, Chapman took the reins of The Baptist Hospital System and unbeknownst to him, many financial and emotional challenges would be awaiting. He defines them as tornados, one being an actual tornado causing structural damage to the hospital earlier that year and the other being an inside (corporation) financial tornado. The latter would be more challenging for him, leading a company that is $83 million dollars worse off than what he was told (Chapman, 2007). His first step was to develop a mission and value statement for the hospital. According to Chapman, “A Healing Hospital is a place characterized by thousands of small and
References: Baptist Healing Trust. (n.d.). Our Mission http://www.baptisthealingtrust.org/about-us/who-we-are Baptist Healing Trust. (n.d.). Radical Loving Care. http://www.baptisthealingtrust.org/programs/compassionate-care-initiative Chapman, E. (2007). Radical loving care: Building the healing hospital in America. Nashville, TN: Vaughn Printing. Eberst, L. Healing Hospital. Retrieved August 23, 2011 from: http://www.bestcompaniesaz.com/pdf/HealingHospital.pdf Erie Chapman. Retrieved August 24, 2011 from: http://journalofsacredwork.typepad.com/about.html University of Minnesota. 2007-2011. Taking Charge of Your Health. Retrieved August 24, 2011 from: http://www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/explore-healing-practices/healing- environment/what-happening-healthcare-settings-today Holy Bible (2004-2005 ed). The New American Bible. Wichita, Kansas. Fireside Bible Publishers.