Rural cancer center is big on services 3 Supporting Alaska Natives 4 Executive changes 10 PERIODICAL RATE PUBLICATION
APRIL 2026 VOLUME 42, NUMBER 4
BRIGHTENiNG THE BEDSIDE:
Colorful blooms and personalized rooms Providence hospital delivers bouquets
By BRIAN REARDON
By VALERIE SCHREMP HAHN
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s director of food and nutrition services at Providence Portland Medical Center in Oregon, Michael Tjaden makes sure patients get delicious meals that nourish and help heal their bodies. But he also enjoys serving up a little nourishment for patients’ souls. Members of his team identify which patients at the hospital, part of Providence St. Joseph Health, might need an extra boost. Then, they deliver a small vase of flowers to their room. Sometimes, patients aren’t sure how to react. “It goes from, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s so wonderful,’ and sometimes we get the reaction of, ‘Why don’t you hand this to someone Continued on 6
‘AI must have ethical inspiration’: Conference explores promise, perils of new tools
Coordinator Athena De Guzman and patient dining specialist Tenzin Lathsang, both with food and nutrition services at Providence Portland Medical Center in Oregon, arrange blooms for bouquets that will go to patients. The hospital has reseeded a program called Let Your Compassion Bloom.
Nonprofits level up decor of patients’ rooms
BOSTON — A central theme among presenters and participants who attended the conference “Artificial Intelligence, Authentic Mercy: Navigating AI Ethics in Catholic Health was how the technology is redefining what it means to be human. The conference, organized by the Center for Theology and Ethics in Catholic Health and Boston College, brought together ethicists, theologians, clinicians, health care executives, and Catholic leaders in mid-March. They discussed how the rapid development and deployment of AI tools affects the delivery of care and how Catholic social teaching can guide the use of the technology to defend human dignity and promote the common good. The conference's keynote speaker, Msgr. Renzo Pegoraro, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, shared highlights of work that the Catho- Msgr. Pegoraro lic Church has undertaken since 2020 to address the ethical and theological dimensions of AI. The 2020 Vatican-led initiative, Rome Call for AI Ethics, has set a frameContinued on 10
By VALERIE SCHREMP HAHN
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early 20 years ago, when Susan Plank’s daughter Kendall was 12, a cousin called and said she had a young friend going through his second bone marrow transplant at a hospital near the Planks’ home in Houston. Could they do anything to help cheer him up? The Planks thought about it, found out more about the boy, named J.B., and learned he loved all things Texas Longhorns, the mascot of the University of Texas at Austin. The mother-daughter duo shopped for items to make a welcoming hospital room accented with the team’s burnt orange color for the boy. The Planks saw J.B.’s elation when he returned to his room from a blood draw. Continued on 6
Intermountain Health uses place-based investing to address socioeconomic factors that impact health By JULIE MINDA
tine in Texas. That hospital made the same switch in April 2023. Monte J. Bostwick, market president of St. Luke’s Health East Texas, a system that is part of CommonSpirit Health and includes the hospital, says finance-wise Memorial Hospital San Augustine is “in a much better place than where it was before under the critical access status.”
A 2024 community health needs assessment for Denver’s Intermountain Saint Joseph Hospital revealed multiple ZIP codes in the hospital’s catchment area where fewer than half of the residents own their homes. In a survey conducted for the assessment, 83% of respondents said affordable housing was a top health priority. The assessment also found that 16% of households experience severe housing cost burdens. In two ZIP codes, a severe housing burden was cited by nearly 25% of households. One way Saint Joseph’s parent system, Intermountain Health, is helping to address the housing concerns in greater Denver is by loaning $2 million to the Elevation Community Land Trust. The funds have enabled the nonprofit to finance construction of what it calls “permanently affordable
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At left, Landry Kiffin, director of the nonprofit Once Upon A Room in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, adds final touches to a patient’s room at FMOL Health’s Our Lady of the Lake Children’s Hospital. At right, a patient at Mercy Children’s Hospital in suburban St. Louis enjoys a superhero-themed hospital room provided by the nonprofit Dec My Room.
With rural emergency designation, two hospitals gain new footing By LISA EISENHAUER
Less than nine months after LandmannJungman Memorial Hospital Avera in Scotland, South Dakota, switched from a critical access to a rural emergency hospital, CEO Melissa Gale says the facility has moved to firm financial ground. The hospital, based in a town of about 800 with a service area in Southeast-
ern South Dakota of about 2,000, had for decades operated at what Gale describes as “break even or less.” Since it opted to change designations July 1, she says, its operations have been solidly in the black. “Overall, we’re running at a healthy positive margin so far this year, which is really outstanding news for us,” she says. The situation is similar at St. Luke’s Health — Memorial Hospital San Augus-