Trinity Health town halls 3 Spreading palliative care 8 Executive changes 9 PERIODICAL RATE PUBLICATION
FEBRUARY 2026 VOLUME 42, NUMBER 2
CDC’s revised childhood vaccination schedule meets resistance By VALERIE SCHREMP HAHN
Many states and several major health and medical organizations, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, are not endorsing the new childhood vaccination schedule released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Meanwhile, Catholic health systems are figuring out what to recommend to their patients, and some pediatricians say more
parents are questioning their advice on what vaccines their children should get and when. “It does create confusion,” said Dr. Shephali Wulff, an infectious diseases physician and chief quality officer for SSM Health. “I think it created mistrust in the general public, because you have health systems and professional societies who now are in conflict with the CDC, and patients who are stuck in the middle, and
Measles outbreaks During the same week the CDC issued its new recommendations, the American Academy of Pediatrics announced there were more cases of measles last year than any year since 1991. The 2025 tally released by the CDC shows 2,267 confirmed cases, compared to 285 confirmed cases in 2024.
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‘EVERY BIRTH, EVERY BABY, IS A MIRACLE FROM GOD’
Ministry systems tap CHA resources to help form trustees, leaders and staff By JULIE MINDA
Sr. Ritamary Brown, second from left, oversees the packing of boxes of clean birth kits for shipment from Hospital Sisters Mission Outreach in Springfield, Illinois. Sr. Brown, OSF, has taken on the role of leading the nonprofit's initiative that sends the kits, which have the necessities for a safe birth, to parts of the world where they are needed. Story on Page 4.
Intermountain Health crafts plan for women with hypertension during pregnancy By VALERIE SCHREMP HAHN
After a study confirmed that hypertension during pregnancy has a connection to heart issues later, a team at Intermountain Health developed a care model to break the link. Dr. Kirstin Hesterberg, a cardiologist at Saint Joseph Hospital in Denver who specializes in cardio-obstetrics and a contributing author on the study, said its findings have “the potential to impact so many women.” She said the findings disHesterberg prove the assumption by some doctors that conditions like preeclampsia and related risks go away after a Continued on 7
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Nearly two years ago, when the Benedictine Sisters of St. Scholastica Monastery in Duluth, Minnesota, transitioned sponsorship of their ministries from a sister council to a ministerial public juridic person model, they and the leaders of their ministries knew they would need a solid formation program to ensure the success of the new body, called Duluth Benedictine Ministries. They’d need programming that would ensure leadership at their ministries across six states had a comprehensive understanding of what it means to be part of the Catholic health ministry and how their roles connect to the ministry’s mission. Sr. Lisa Maurer, OSB, Duluth Benedictine Ministries director of mission Continued on 10
‘We are literally coast Rural health care’s problems will never be solved by large, to coast’: Dispensary urban academic centers. No one is coming to save rural of Hope continues to health care. So, we need to think differently. We need a wildly expand reach different way to look at our challenges.” — Dr. Daniel Spoon
By LISA EISENHAUER
Providence hospital, university in Montana partner to ensure research benefits rural areas By JULIE MINDA
Large academic medical centers drive much of the innovation and advancement in health care. With most of these medical centers located in well populated areas, rural people tend to be underrepresented in the centers’ research and slow to benefit. A collaborative made up of Providence St. Joseph Health, Providence St. Patrick Hospital and the University of Montana seeks to address this and related concerns. Through an initiative they call RESOLVE,
this group is bringing the Providence system’s research capabilities and resources to bear so that the Missoula, Montana, hospital and the university can conduct more research locally and ensure that rural populations benefit from the findings. The partners plan to involve health care facilities and academic institutions throughout Montana and beyond in RESOLVE. (“RESOLVE” is not an acronym.) Dr. Daniel Spoon is Providence Montana’s chief medical officer, director of Continued on 7
Within Ascension’s broad mission to answer God’s call to bring health, healing and hope to all, Dispensary of Hope CEO Scott Cornwell says the charitable subsidiary he leads has a little carve out: medication access. As a pharmaceutical distributor under the Ascension umbrella, Dispensary of Hope requests medication donations from manufacturers and distributes them to clinics and pharmacies to be given to qualifying low-income patients free of charge. In 2014, CHA honored Dispensary of Continued on 6
Ascension's chief pharmacy officer is on a mission to get medications to those in need. Page 6