Catholic Health World - February 2026

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

‘EVERY BIRTH, EVERY BABY, IS A MIRACLE FROM GOD’

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 disprove the assumption by some doctors that conditions like preeclampsia and related risks go away after a Hesterberg

“Rural health care’s problems will never be solved by large, urban academic centers. No one is coming to save rural health care. So, we need to think differently. We need a wildly different way to look at our challenges.”

— Dr. Daniel Spoon

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

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.

Ministry systems tap CHA resources to help form trustees, leaders and staff

By JULIE MINDA

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 to coast’: Dispensary of Hope continues to expand reach

By LISA EISENHAUER

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

Ascension's chief pharmacy officer is on a mission to get medications to those in need Page 6

A long reach

An Ascension surgical oncologist based in Kansas regularly teaches people from around the country and the world virtually and in real time how to perform robotic-assisted surgery.

MLK Day kindness

A donation drive hosted by Saint Joseph’s Center in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and staffed by volunteers on Martin Luther King Jr. Day gathered 17,000 clothing items and 13,000 diapers.

Strange visitor

Seattle’s Virginia Mason Medical Center had a Sasquatch sighting. The ape-like creature of legend showed up at an appointment of a good-humored patient known to be a Sasquatch fan.

Ethicist advises on how to cultivate virtue in Catholic health care

By VALERIE SCHREMP HAHN

How can virtue alone help Catholic health care organizations? What role does establishing a good discernment process play? What are the practical benefits of integrating virtue into an organizational culture?

Kristy Ehlert, who most recently served as south region director of theology and ethics for CommonSpirit Health and will serve as the director of mission and ethics at Hospital Sisters Health System starting this month, explored these issues in the Jan. 7 webinar “The Hidden Benefits of Virtue in Catholic Health Care Organizations.”

The webinar was part of CHA’s series Emerging Topics in Catholic Health Care Ethics.

Ehlert earned a doctorate in bioethics from Loyola University Chicago, one of the co-sponsors of the webinar series. She is also a Presbyterian minister.

Virtuous organizations, Ehlert said, quoting researcher L. Froman, “strive to do well by doing good and to do good by doing well.” The culture they create can perpetuate flourishing, relationships, meaningful work, and ongoing development and learning that results in virtuous behavior, she said.

Virtue in practice

Ehlert discussed what virtuous ethics look like in the workplace based on her experience as a chaplain and pastor, and told stories based on a compilation of experiences shared with her in recent years.

One story was about an organization that closed a unit and cut positions. Leaders of the organization called employees in to say they were sorry and explain what was

happening. “Today is your last day,” Ehlert said the employees were told, “and here’s HR to help you, and have a donut, and let us know if there’s anything we can help you with.”

People got their severance packages and left, Ehlert said, but there was a sense of disconnect with the organization among the staff who were let go and those who remained with the organization. Long-term effects included decreased trust in the organization and increased turnover.

“I would suggest, by virtue of our shared identity, Catholic health care is grounded in the attributes of a virtuous organization.”

— Kristy Ehlert

Conversely, when another organization had layoffs, leaders there talked to staff about the organization’s values and its purpose. They communicated that in order for the organization to thrive, changes in staffing were necessary. While they acknowledged the grief and disruption for those being laid off and those remaining, their words and actions communicated that their intent was to support each person and for those who were laid off to thrive.

“Although it was still a sense of grief, there was a sense of understanding,” Ehlert said. “So no one was happy with the situation, but there wasn’t that same sense of shock and disconcertedness about how this happened and how could an organization do this in such a way.”

Virtuous organizations do five key things, she said: They are guided by strong

moral values, strive for moral goodness and positive human impact, contribute to the benefit of society, operate within a specific industry context such as health care, and effectively balance multiple bottom lines that they need to support and discern their work.

“I would suggest, by virtue of our shared identity, Catholic health care is grounded in the attributes of a virtuous organization,” she said.

The role of discernment

Discernment is one way Catholic health care organizations integrate virtue into organizational practice, Ehlert said.

Ehlert referenced two forms of decisionmaking. One involves the quick decisions made each day that are informed by experience and presumed knowledge and even emotion. The other is discernment, a slowed down, very deliberate process, with people consciously articulating their values as they make decisions.

“If we engage discernment consistently, we model virtuous decision-making and all of the members of our organizations see our individual and corporate values in action,” Ehlert said.

She said that when people witness virtuous behavior, the likelihood that they themselves will engage in virtuous behavior increases, creating a snowball effect. Such behavior creates positive emotions that are contagious, she said.

Ehlert cited practical benefits from cultivating a virtuous organization: It builds employee engagement, improves quality and safety, results in greater patient satisfaction, and opens the door for innovation.

“We have this foundation of thousands of years of theology, of faith, of seeking to do the right thing, of doing good because it’s the right thing to do,” she said. vhahn@chausa.org

CHA website streamlines process to get answers on community benefit

By VALERIE SCHREMP HAHN

CHA is making it easier to ask questions and get prompt answers about what counts as community benefit.

A new “Submit a what counts question to CHA” button went live on CHA’s website in January. The button is on the What Counts as Community Benefit page as well as the page for the What Counts Q&A Library.

director of community health improvement. Members and nonmembers can use the resources, she added.

The button provides links to these CHA resources: Is it Community Benefit? Quick Reference Guide, the What Counts Q&A Library and the community benefit categories and definitions from CHA’s A Guide for Planning & Reporting Community Benefit. Users who don’t find an answer to their question there can fill out a form and submit it.

“One of our goals at CHA is to support and build knowledge of community benefit requirements and support our members and the field,” said Nancy Zuech Lim, CHA’s

Before, users with questions were led to a document that provided further instructions to email Lim. “That process involved a lot of steps to reach us,” said Lim. “Now there is a very easy way to get in touch with us.”

When someone submits a question, Lim will receive a notice in her email inbox. So will Kim Skinner, CHA’s community health program coordinator. Skinner will log and track the question.

CHA has a What Counts work group, made up of community benefit professionals who volunteer their expertise for six-month terms. The work group members share their insights and experiences when needed.

Users who submit questions typically receive responses within two weeks. Lim estimated more than 135 questions were answered in 2025. Some questions and

answers may be added to the What Counts library. Tracking the questions provides Lim and Skinner with direction when developing resources and updating information on the website.

Topics in the What Counts library include the reportable categories of community benefit — financial assistance, health professions education, research and subsidized health services — and topics related to reporting and other requirements.

CHA is continually updating its community benefit resources. In 2025, it released a revised edition of A Guide for Planning & Reporting Community Benefit, considered an essential source for Catholic and other nonprofit health care organizations responding to the unique needs of their communities.

CHA has provided information and tools for assessing, planning, implementing and reporting community benefit for more than 35 years. Its community benefit resources are at chausa.org/communitybenefit.

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Vice President Communications and Marketing Brian P. Reardon Editor Lisa Eisenhauer leisenhauer@chausa.org 314-253-3437

Associate Editor Julie Minda jminda@chausa.org 314-253-3412

Trinity Health virtual town halls provide mental health guidance for employees

By JULIE MINDA

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, it became clear that health care workers were not immune from the mental health challenges escalating nationwide. Like so many others, they were suffering from burnout and other mental health conditions.

Trinity Health is among the many ministry systems and facilities that have increasingly prioritized colleague well-being in recent years.

Since about 2022, the health system has hosted online “town hall” discussions on mental health several times a year for its employees. The main goals are to remove the stigma of mental health conditions, normalize seeking care, and encourage employees to nurture themselves — body, mind and soul.

Jodi Weiner, Trinity Health vice president of benefits and well-being, says, “Our approach to well-being is holistic and includes all the elements of well-being that affect our colleagues’ ability to flourish and thrive.”

spiritual care support, such as workers who need additional care after a traumatic incident. The care team members are trained in evidence-based interventions.

Additionally, Trinity Health provides its leadership with access to coaching and training on how to support colleagues who may be suffering a mental health crisis. The training includes how to recognize individuals in crisis and to point them to resources to access help.

Measurable impact

Each town hall session includes instructions for accessing Trinity Health’s resources.

Dr. Daniel Roth, Trinity Health executive vice president and chief operating officer, says the town halls are having a direct, positive impact. “We’re getting good feedback,” Roth says. “Our colleagues are finding the topics to be salient and an important benefit. We’re trying to make the town halls actionable.”

Trinity Health leadership knew from surveys and anecdotal input that employees were experiencing mental health concerns, but staff were not necessarily aware of and taking full advantage of the mental health resources available to them, according to Roth and Weiner.

The system had seen employees and their families embrace videoconferences as a valued platform for learning and asking questions of Trinity Health leadership about COVID-19 information. Leaders decided to use the same online platform for a system-wide conversation on mental health.

Crowdsourcing topics

Roth and Weiner say it is a joint effort

By VALERIE SCHREMP HAHN

Mercy is partnering with the company Wellvana to offer independent primary care physicians and advanced practice providers access to resources that focus on valuebased care.

Mercy, based in Chesterfield, Missouri, in early December announced the 20-year partnership with Wellvana, based in Nashville, Tennessee.

With value-based care payments, providers are rewarded for good patient outcomes, not how many times patients come through the door.

Mercy and Wellvana will focus on improving patient outcomes and reducing the administrative burden for independent providers, helping them remain financially viable with access to value-based care programs and services. Participating physicians will get data-driven insights, care coordination resources and practice-level support.

A new study from health care consultancy Sage Growth Partners says 77% of health system and hospital leadership teams are planning to increase participa-

Representatives of these disciplines unite to address employee well-being. As part of this role, they “crowdsource” to learn what mental health topics are of most concern for employees. Trinity Health has about 133,000 colleagues and more than 38,900 physicians and clinicians working at 92 hospitals and a network of other facilities across 25 states.

After determining the best topics to address, the leadership team assembles a panel of experts to speak at each town hall. The sessions, which last about an hour, occur about three times a year and are open to any associate to attend virtually. Participants can submit questions and observations, and they can do so anonymously. The sessions are recorded so those who miss the live airing can watch later.

Open forum

Topics have included removing stigmas around mental health; setting boundaries; addressing substance misuse and other addictions; handling family dynamics; creating a mental health action plan; improving sleep; and understanding the interconnection between physical, emotional, spiritual and mental health.

Presenters include subject matter experts from Trinity Health as well as outside experts. Sometimes, Trinity Health’s external employee well-being consultant, Spring Health, supplies speakers.

Roth and Weiner say the collaborative of mission, clinical and human resources leaders has enhanced the system’s employee well-being resources in recent years.

“ Our approach to well-being is holistic and includes all the elements of well-being that affect our colleagues’ ability to flourish and thrive.”

— Jodi Weiner

After staff reported that mental health counseling was difficult to access, Trinity Health engaged Spring Health to offer quick access — usually within a day and a half — to virtual counseling. The service is available to colleagues and their family members. Longer-term counseling also is available if the short-term therapy is not enough, as are life coaching sessions if that is a better fit.

Trinity Health also has enhanced the support available to colleagues at work. It has formed care teams made up of mission and spiritual care department staff to round on colleagues who need extra

Roth and Weiner say the town halls and enhanced resources have contributed to the workforce being more mentally grounded and engaged. Thousands of colleagues have taken part in the town halls, and many join the open discussion segment. This includes colleagues sharing how they’ve taken advantage of well-being resources.

The town halls also have resulted in greater usage of the resources. An estimated 30% of Trinity Health colleagues or their families have accessed Spring Health services. As part of the services, mental health is assessed before and after therapy. These assessments show that about half of those who underwent therapy reported improvements in depression and anxiety. Weiner notes that employees have said that the therapy has helped them and/or their families.

Weiner says the programming has worked because “we’ve leaned into partnerships that are natural for us — partnerships of the mission and spiritual care teams that are present in these spaces (where employees work) and who are trusted.”

She adds that leadership buy-in also has been critical. Trinity Health leaders have embraced the chance to learn how to help their staff prioritize mental health. And those leaders have even stepped forward, including at the town halls, to testify to the importance of being mentally healthy.

“They show up and are visible,” Weiner says. “They acknowledge the mental health challenges.”

She adds, “As a Catholic health care ministry, one of our core tenets in our wellbeing program is that we lead with a healthy spirit — you can bring that spiritual health to the forefront along with the mental health, and we lean into that quite a lot.” jminda@chausa.org

Mercy partnership offers value-based care support to independent physicians

tion in value-based care models within two years, an increase from 57% in 2023.

Thompson of Trinity Health’s mission leaders, clinical leaders and human resources and colleague care team to make the town halls as successful as possible.

Dave Thompson, Mercy’s senior vice president, chief growth officer and president, population health, spoke with Catholic Health World about Mercy’s role in the partnership with Wellvana. His responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Why did you want to commit to this partnership?

It’s a long partnership, and we were very thoughtful in wanting to bring in a partner who could help a broader base of providers within our communities that we serve today and communities that we may grow into in the future. We want to help those independent providers remain viable and actually thrive in a new kind of health care landscape.

Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas are our three central states, though we serve patients from the surrounding region, and our health care outcomes in those communities are not as high as they can and should be. Reimbursement is relatively pressured compared to the rest of the country. So we have a real crisis on our hands in terms of

being able to provide the adequate level of access and ensure that providers are able to sustain their practices and thrive in a future model of funding as well as a future kind of health care delivery system.

Who are you trying to reach, and what does Mercy bring to the table?

With Mercy’s provider base of approximately 5,000 providers and 50 hospitals, we’re serving about 4 million patients a year. But in the communities that we serve, there’s upwards of 30 million lives that can and should be served in a much more integrated way than they are today. A lot of times, independent practitioners are out on an island. They don’t have the ability to negotiate in inventive alternative payment models. They don’t typically have sophisticated electronic health records. They don’t typically have strong connection points into regional or even local health care systems to be able to provide longitudinal care. They often don’t have strong support for virtual care and digital care. All of those things are part of the broader vision that we feel should extend to all patients they serve.

Are you getting a lot of interest so far, and how many patients do you want to help serve?

Yes, we’re getting a lot of interest, from probably about half a dozen relatively large independent primary care groups, even multispecialty groups. We think the initial number of lives is somewhere around 400,000, but we do think the opportunity is far greater than that.

Is Mercy hoping eventually for more partnerships with providers or that patients will eventually see Mercy providers?

It’s definitely an opportunity to integrate care better in the communities we serve. Our hope is that we can wow independent primary care by rolling out the red carpet with this program where appropriate. We think we’re the best solution for many of the communities we serve. A lot of our data would prove that we’re one of the largest ACOs (accountable care organizations) in the country, with leading quality scores, and so we want to create a straight line of care for patients in the communities we serve. If we manage the populations well together — meaning we keep their A1C (or blood sugar) levels in check; we manage their multiple, chronic conditions; and maybe even start to reverse those conditions — then there’s a win, win, win scenario for all parties, right? vhahn@chausa.org

Retired sister takes lead in effort by Mission Outreach to ship birth kits where needed

By JILL MOON

Sr. Ritamary Brown’s dedication to caring for the sick led her to focus in retirement on mothers and newborns in poor countries, especially at the moment of birth.

Sr. Brown, a member of the Hospital Sisters of St. Francis, retired two years ago from hospital work. She immediately began volunteering with Hospital Sisters Mission Outreach, a medical surplus recovery organization based in Springfield, Illinois, and founded by her order in 2002. Last year, she took on the role of leading the nonprofit’s clean birth kit initiative that was started in 2024 and made its first shipment last spring.

Through the program, Mission Outreach sends supplies to places across the globe where birthing services are unavailable or financially out of reach for many mothers.

Sr. Brown noted that health disparities in many poor nations result in infant and maternal mortality rates that are significantly higher than in the United States.

“Many of these deaths are correlated with inadequate pre- and post-partum clinical care access, including medical supplies and working diagnostic medical equipment,” she explained.

Sr. Ritamary Brown, OSF, is leading the initiative to send birth kits — with basic supplies to enable a safe delivery such as soap, gauze, umbilical cord clips, a scalpel and disposable gloves — overseas from Hospital Sisters Mission Outreach in Springfield, Illinois.

The clean birth kits assembled by volunteers and shipped by Mission Outreach include items necessary to safely deliver a baby, such as soap, gauze, umbilical cord clips, a scalpel, antiseptic wipes, an underpad, disposable gloves, and instructions on how to use the items. The supplies in each kit cost about $15, but access to them is limited to nonexistent in many low-resource parts of the world.

The kits are an addition to Mission Outreach’s longstanding work of collecting surplus, but usable, medical supplies and equipment from U.S. hospitals and clin-

ics, then shipping those items in 40-foot containers to medical sites in low-resource areas globally. The supplies in those shipments sometimes include equipment for obstetrical and maternal care such as fetal heart monitors and ultrasound machines.

“Supporting clinical care for labor and delivery through the donation of essential medical supplies and equipment is a focus at Mission Outreach and is meaningful to me personally and spiritually,” Sr. Brown said.

Sr. Brown was a dietitian before getting her master’s in hospital administration. She

later led hospital departments such as facilities, supply chain, environmental services and food/nutrition.

“Her professional experience with logistics and supply chain was a natural fit for a Mission Outreach volunteer position, especially focusing on clean birth kits, in retirement,” said Erica Smith, Mission Outreach’s executive director.

The first shipment of 1,000 clean birth kits went to nurses at a hospital in Moshi, Tanzania, in eastern Africa. The infant mortality rate in Tanzania is estimated at about 30 per 1,000 live births; that compares to about six for the United States, according to the World Bank.

Smith and other Mission Outreach employees have made several visits to the hospital as part of a multiyear collaboration to increase access to medical equipment and supplies overall, with an emphasis on mother and baby care.

The nurses in Moshi use the kits and distribute them to midwives and other traditional birth attendants. “I talked to nurses who used them, to make sure what they needed and wanted was in the kits,” Smith said.

This year, Mission Outreach will send the kits to more African countries and to locations in South America where there is a need. The goal of the program is to distribute 5,000 kits annually.

Sr. Brown wrote a column about her leadership in the clean birth kits initiative for the Global Sisters Report website. “Where a baby happens to be born should not determine his or her access to safe, clean conditions to come into the world,” she noted in that piece. “Every birth, every baby, is a miracle from God, and we should treat it as such.”

Intermountain Health cardiologist gives back on visits to his native Peru

By VALERIE SCHREMP HAHN

Fifteen years ago, when Dr. Carlos Albrecht’s mother had a heart attack, it took four flights and 26 hours for him to get to Lima, Peru, to be at her bedside at a public hospital.

“I was in shock at how well she was taken care of,” says Albrecht, who lived and worked in South Carolina at the time. “The mattresses were sagging. The beds were in bad shape. The infrastructure is horrible, but the quality of her care was spectacular, and they saved her life.”

Albrecht, now a cardiologist with St. James Hospital in Butte, Montana, part of Intermountain Health, had received a free medical school education in Peru in the 1980s as the country was embroiled in social and political turmoil. He has since worked and lived all over the United States and the world. When he saw his mother, he realized he wanted to give back to the people in his home country.

“It just shocked me how much they could do with so little,” he says. “For the first time in that long of a time it struck me, and I was like: I have to do something.”

He asked the Lima hospital’s chief of cardiology how he could help. The doctor replied that in the immediate term Albrecht could give a lecture on cardiac care, but in the future, he could serve at hospitals that treat the poorest people of Peru. The doctor said those hospitals could use his hands, resources and expertise.

For the last 14 years, Albrecht has traveled to Peru twice a year on his own time and at his own expense to provide pacemakers and defibrillators to the patients of those hospitals. Medical technology companies Medtronic and Boston Scientific donate the devices. Albrecht says the hospitals where he has volunteered can’t afford the lifesaving devices.

Depending on the number of devices and amount of supplies he can bring with

him, he can help about a dozen patients on each trip and show doctors in Peru how to implant the devices.

The challenge is that if the doctors don’t implant the devices as often as cardiologists might in the United States, they lose dexterity and fall out of practice. “And so when I go, I teach them different ways to do it,” Albrecht says. “So it’s faster and quick.”

Working with limited resources

For the first several years of his medical travel in Peru, Albrecht volunteered in Hospital Nacional Dos de Mayo, which was built in 1875 — but founded in 1538 — and is Lima’s first and largest public hospital. Not much has changed to the hospital’s layout since 1875, he says: Patients are grouped in open-air wards and most record-keeping is done on paper, with few computers. Hospital caregivers often ask patients to bring their own food and supplies like needles and sutures.

Albrecht says he brings everything he needs for the surgeries he performs in Peru.

During a 2023 trip, the equipment in the operating room at Hospital Nacional Dos de

Mayo broke down and wasn’t repaired, so for the last two years, Albrecht has helped patients at another public hospital in Lima, Hospital Nacional Hipólito Unanue. During his last trip, in July, because of the sponsorship of the St. James Hospital Foundation, Intermountain catheterization lab techs Noelle Coates and Kelli Bush accompanied him. The trio spent about a week helping their Peruvian counterparts implant pacemakers or defibrillators in 11 patients.

At the start of his medical career, Albrecht did several rotations at both Lima hospitals. He sees his work now as a repayment for his early education.

Life lessons

With the help of his children, Eliette, Dara and Lars, Albrecht set up a foundation called Lifebeat Peru several years ago to facilitate his volunteer work. The only donations he seeks are devices from the companies that make them. Over the years, all three of his children, who are now young adults, have accompanied him to Peru and in the operating room there to learn valuable life lessons.

“I’m not a prophet. I’m not a preacher,” Albrecht says. “But I have a moral north. And I tell my kids: Always keep your moral north. When you’re blessed to have things, just give it to others.

“A lot of people who are less fortunate, and for whatever reasons, they were born into a country with deep structural problems. I’m not going to fix it; I’ll just do my part.”

According to Human Rights Watch, five former presidents in Peru have been charged with corruption, and corruption has been a major factor in the deterioration of public institutions, public services, and the environment. As of 2023, 28% of the people of Peru lived under the national monetary poverty line of $67 U.S. dollars a month, an increase from 20% in 2019.

Albrecht takes his trips over the Thanksgiving and Fourth of July holidays, a time that is not as disruptive to his schedule as one of Butte’s few cardiologists.

“I cannot leave rural west America without cardiologists, either,” he says.

He says his trips to Peru have made him reflect on the importance of addressing disparities in rural and urban areas of the United States. He has worked in both settings and encourages cardiologists to work where there is the most need. “You will make a forever impact,” he says.

This year, Albrecht plans to welcome a doctor from Peru to shadow him and other cardiologists in Montana for two or three weeks. He considers it his obligation to teach and serve others.

After all, doctors in his home country helped him in his career and saved the life of his mother, now 89. She lives in Brazil and is doing great, Albrecht says.

“She dances in the streets,” he says, laughing. “She travels everywhere. She goes to see my brother, sees me, she goes everywhere. When you dare to offer her a wheelchair, she says, ‘No, no thank you. I can walk.’”

vhahn@chausa.org

Leaders of three faith-based organizations decry demise of USAID

The leaders of CHA and two other faithbased organizations said the Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development and other changes to U.S. global health policy and strategy are having a detrimental impact on poor and vulnerable people around the world.

The reduction in U.S. foreign aid and outreach to low-income nations “hits at the heart of who we are,” said Sr. Mary Haddad, RSM, president and CEO of CHA. “This is a moral crisis now.”

Sr. Mary was a panelist on a Jan. 29 webinar along with John Monahan, senior adviser, Georgetown University Global Health Institute; and Nkatha Njeru, CEO of the African Christian Health Associations Platform.

The speakers said low- and middleincome nations need the donations from USAID and are suffering without that ongoing influx of funds.

“It is a dramatic change in the donor landscape, and it is overwhelming and challenging” for the international community to deal with, Monahan said.

The three leaders called for organiza-

tions of goodwill from around the world to join together to advocate for poor and vulnerable people, as well as to oppose the global aid funding cuts.

“We need to partner for the future. We need to think of sustainability and what we want to achieve,” Njeru said. “We need to be deliberate in how we engage and what our real priorities are. And we need to ensure we are listening to each other.”

The webinar, “United for Change: A Catholic Response to Today’s Global Health Challenges,” was hosted by CHA, Georgetown Law’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown University Global Health Institute and that institute’s Faith and Global Health Initiative.

Keynote Speakers

Millions of lives at stake

USAID began in 1961 as an independent agency of the executive branch. Its goals were to provide humanitarian assistance and support developing countries’ economic growth and resilience. Especially over the last 20 years, the United States “has been the leading government donor to humanitarian response plans, development aid, and multilateral development banks” mainly through USAID, according to an analysis published in The Lancet in July. In 2023, USAID gave $55 billion in aid.

Last year President Donald Trump signed an executive order that suspended foreign aid programs, except for emergency food assistance and military aid. The administration since has dismantled USAID and transferred some of its functions to the State Department while significantly reducing foreign aid.

The Lancet analysis indicated that between 2001 and 2021, USAID dollars prevented an estimated 91.8 million deaths, including 30.4 million children. The study predicted that the USAID funding cuts could result in about 14 million deaths worldwide, including 4.5 million children.

The cuts could reverse decades of progress, the report concluded.

Choosing medicines or food

Njeru’s organization connects more than 10,000 faith-based health care facilities in more than 30 African countries to help them share knowledge and tools and advocate together for solutions to their challenges. She said that faith-based and other private providers do not get public funding and must rely heavily on donors. Njeru said USAID had been a crucial funding source and the cuts in that aid are forcing already stretched health care facilities

Holding fast to the ‘universal’ mission

Bruce Compton, CHA senior director of global health, heads a global health council made up primarily of Catholic health system representatives who are responsible for foreign aid and outreach at their organizations.

Compton told Catholic Health World that the council members have emphasized that the ministry must remain bold in engaging fully in the “universal” aspect of the church’s mission.

This aspect of the Catholic health ministry’s work “should not fade away because of changes in policy and financing,” at ministry systems and facilities, Compton said.

to make difficult decisions, such as cutting staff. She added that other countries that had provided economic aid also are cutting back.

Njeru said the funding reductions are making it more costly and difficult for people to access health care. She said some families are having to choose between feeding their children and accessing medical care.

Sr. Mary said the COVID pandemic reminded everyone that the world is interdependent “and we are impacted by what happens in other countries.”

Sr. Mary added that cuts to health care funding are putting U.S. providers at risk. She said the Catholic health ministry provides a significant amount of aid globally and she is concerned that amid the crunch these systems are facing financially, they may not be able to prioritize global health aid to the level that they have historically.

“My fear is that we will be so focused on what we’re facing in the U.S. that we will be blindsided to the broader problems,” Sr. Mary said. “We don’t live in isolation.”

Monahan said the cascading negative impacts of the new national policies show that “it’s both morally and strategically problematic” for the U.S. government to cut aid programs, both foreign and domestic.

More voices

Amid the cutbacks and changes in how the U.S. government relates to other countries, Monahan said, “There is a role for more voices, including the Catholic Church.”

The speakers said that it is essential for organizations to unite to respond to the situation. They said organizations around the world must together advocate for the low- and middle-income countries that are suffering because of the cuts in government aid.

Monahan said coalition building has worked in the past, spurring the U.S. government until 2025 to become the leading donor of foreign aid. He said it is time for Catholic Church ministries to be a prophetic voice, leading coalitions like those of the past to restore support for those in need around the world.

The international community should promote a sustainable model of development for countries in need, the webinar presenters agreed. Njeru emphasized that it is important to build partnerships in the right way, focused on being intentional and on working toward a strong infrastructure for the future. She acknowledged that people are concerned about long-term instability in Africa and the ongoing need for aid there. But she said the African nations depend on resources and support to build up systems that will make them more independent in the future.

She said that partnerships that form to seek solutions will need to listen to the people in the countries they are helping and incorporate their input into solutions.

Silver lining

The webinar presenters said although the funding cuts have had a significant negative impact on vulnerable countries worldwide, there are some signs of hope.

Njeru said she’s seen organizations in Africa gain clarity on their mission as they’ve been forced to prioritize their most essential work.

Monahan said he has hope that global coalitions of organizations will be able to work together for good. He said those organizations will have to work with those currently in power in the U.S. government to impact the efforts happening overseas. He said there are some promising areas of common ground to start from.

Sr. Mary said the coalitions advocating for goodwill need to rise up and speak out for what’s right and engage. “What is most needed is for us to speak truth to power and to ensure the gospel message is integral to all we do,” she said.

Ascension chief pharmacy officer gets medications to those in need

By LISA EISENHAUER

Mike Wascovich can point to many reasons Ascension wants patients who are uninsured or underinsured to have access to prescription medications.

Wascovich, Ascension’s vice president and chief pharmacy officer, says one is that studies have shown the return on investment is substantial, with patients who have access to needed medications avoiding health crises and expensive medical care. Another is that drugmakers often have surpluses that, if they didn’t go to patients, might be wasted and even disposed of in ways that are harmful to the environment.

However, Wascovich says the main reason the St. Louis-based system wants to see that patients, regardless of circumstances, get their prescribed medications is because it’s the right thing for a Catholic ministry to do.

“It’s taking and stretching finite resources to the most vulnerable,” he says, “and I think that is part of Catholic social

Dispensary of Hope

Hope with its Achievement Citation for exemplifying the Catholic health care ministry’s commitment to carry on Jesus’ mission of compassion and healing. A doctor at what was then Saint Thomas Health in Nashville, Tennessee, founded Dispensary of Hope in 2003. Within 10 years it had about 80 pharmacies in its network. Saint Thomas Health is now part of Ascension.

Cornwell says his organization has come a long way since its founding, especially in recent years. “We are literally coast to coast,” he says. “From the very earliest days, this was our dream.”

The Dispensary of Hope pharmacy network now encompasses 305 sites in 38 states. Just last year, it added 29 pharmacies. Eleven of the newest sites are within Ascension, bringing the health system’s total to 34. All of the pharmacies are part of nonprofit care providers and several are operated by other Catholic health systems, including Trinity Health, Bon Secours Mercy Health and CommonSpirit Health.

The number of medication doses donated to Dispensary of Hope by drug manufacturers reached 130 million last year, an increase of 62% from 2024. The number of prescriptions the charity filled hit 1.2 million annually, or 3,500 a day.

Creating a toehold

Cornwell says it took until about 2020 for Dispensary of Hope to firmly establish itself as a go-between for drugmakers and nonprofit pharmacies that dispense medication to people in need. “I think it has taken that long for our identity to become well known,” he says. “The industry is built for the typical commercial marketplace, and to establish ourselves as a reliable and viable solution just took a little bit of time.”

For many years, the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy has given Dispensary of Hope its highest accreditation rating for a pharmaceutical distributor. “That is really important for us, because we would say that quality of health care is synonymous with dignity and we just cannot, will not, let that be compromised in any way,” Cornwell says.

Dispensary of Hope is based in Nashville. It stocks and ships medications from a warehouse there. To be eligible for its medications, patients must be uninsured and

teaching and our Catholic identity.”

Wascovich has made it his goal to see that Ascension’s charity efforts cover or reduce the cost of prescriptions for as many low-income patients as possible.

Dispensary of Hope

One of the main avenues Ascension uses to ensure patients in need get their prescriptions is Dispensary of Hope, a charitable subsidiary of the system. Dispensary of Hope distributes medications through a network of pharmacies run by Ascension and other nonprofit health care providers. Those pharmacies in turn pass the medications along to people who have prescriptions but are uninsured and whose incomes are no more than three times the federal poverty level.

In the fiscal year that ended last June, Ascension distributed 71,000 prescriptions through its partnership with Dispensary of Hope.

That number is certain to grow in the current fiscal year because Ascension added 11 of its pharmacies to the Dispensary of Hope network last August. With the expansion, 34 Ascension sites are now part

their incomes must be less than three times the federal poverty level. Pharmacies use an online portal created by Dispensary of Hope to order medication for their patients. The pharmacies then dispense the drugs or ship them to patients’ homes.

The medication the charity collected last year came from 58 drugmakers located across the globe. Dispensary of Hope focuses on chronic-maintenance medicines in five categories: mental health, cardiovascular, diabetes, respiratory, and endocrine and gastrointestinal.

“These are the medications that you would find that, by and large, are keeping most patients out of the emergency room,” Cornwell explains.

The charity maintains a Primary Access Medication List, which currently contains 172 medications that are consistently available in its inventory to treat the most common primary care conditions. This list allows dispensing partners to order medication and be assured that the same medication will be available on a recurring basis for continued or maintenance treatment.

Dispensary of Hope also keeps a Flexible Access Medication List, which currently contains 177 medications. Those medica-

of Dispensary of Hope’s web of 305 pharmacies. An Ascension home-delivery pharmacy in Austin, Texas, is one of those newly added. That pharmacy is licensed to ship medication to 48 states.

Wascovich points out that the medications supplied by Dispensary of Hope are kept in a “segregated inventory” at dispensing pharmacies. The donated medications are solely for patients who qualify based on their insurance status and finances. The pharmacies get no financial gains from them.

Conversely, the patients who qualify for medication through Dispensary of Hope get the same customer service as any other Ascension pharmacy client. If the drugs are shipped, there is no charge. Patients have access to pharmacists who can explain proper use and potential side effects.

Other charitable programs

Dispensary of Hope relies on donations from drugmakers for its supplies. Wascovich says the charity’s formulary, or list of available drugs, covers only about 30% of those that Ascension’s uninsured and underinsured patients need.

tions are in a variable supply and address a range of primary care conditions. This list allows dispensing partners to fill gaps in their charitable inventory to serve more patients by extending charity care resources.

Of Dispensary of Hope’s budget of about $5 million, 60% comes from its member pharmacies, which subscribe to its services. The other 40% comes from philanthropic gifts from foundations and other donors.

Shared vision

Whereas early on, Dispensary of Hope mostly gathered surplus medication, now all of the medication is sourced by donation from manufacturers and most of its supplies are specifically made by manufacturers at the charity’s request. The drugmakers might get a tax write-off for their gifts, but Cornwell says the bigger motivation for the companies isn’t financial. He says their giving is part of their corporate social responsibility strategy, which Dispensary of Hope’s work fits into.

“The reason that they are at the table and supporting our work is because they, too, understand the vision and the mission and are committed to it,” he says.

Even with its growth, Dispensary of

To close some of that gap, Ascension operates other charitable pharmacy programs. One of them is its prescription assistance card. Patients with limited incomes who sign up for the card can get free or discounted prescriptions. Another way the system provides prescription assistance is by enrolling patients directly in giveaway programs that many drugmakers offer for people who can’t afford their products. The system also participates in the 340B Drug Pricing Program, a federal initiative that allows safety-net hospitals to purchase certain outpatient drugs at discounted prices.

Aside from its partnership with Dispensary of Hope, Wascovich says Ascension’s charitable prescription programs had a community benefit of about $200 million last year.

He predicts that total will keep climbing as Ascension grows its prescription access programs and looks for more new ways to get medications to those in need, such as the 28 million people who lack insurance in the United States. “We’re highly, highly invested in it, and we think we should be, and we want to expand it,” he says.

leisenhauer@chausa.org

Hope is still scratching the surface of the need for medication among low-income Americans, Cornwell says. He points out that since passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the uninsured population has dropped drastically but still stands at about 28 million. Also, many of those covered under the ACA have catastrophic plans that don’t pay for prescriptions.

“We did bend the curve as a country,” Cornwell says. “However, we didn’t eliminate the need.”

His organization has a strategy to expand its reach so it can get more free medications to more people. To smooth that process, Cornwell says it would be helpful if the nation had more stable policies around health care. For example, tariffs that disrupt, or even threaten to disrupt, the pharmaceutical supply chain mean instability for his organization and care providers. He aspires for Dispensary of Hope to gain even more recognition as a source of free medication and more partners for its work. “Why is Dispensary of Hope the bestkept secret?” he wonders. “And how do we change that?”

leisenhauer@chausa.org

Hypertension study

From page 1

woman gives birth.

The study was presented in November at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions. Among its findings were that within five years of giving birth women who had blood pressure disorders during pregnancy faced increased risk of heart failure (3 to 13 times greater risk), stroke (2 to 17 times greater risk), heart attack (3 to 7 times greater risk), coronary artery disease (2 to 7 times greater risk) and death (1.4 to 4 times greater risk).

“At least in one of the groups, women who had eclampsia, the most severe form, had almost a 20% increase in their risk of developing a type of heart disease afterwards,” Hesterberg said. “These are small numbers, but that’s a pretty significant increased risk for women.”

The records the team looked at were from more than 218,000 live births at 22 Intermountain Health hospitals. Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy affected nearly 20% of the more than 150,000 women who gave birth and most cases occurred during the women’s first live birth.

A clear plan

After the study confirmed their suspicions about the heart risks linked to hypertensive disorders in pregnant women, the Intermountain group developed an innovative clinical care process model. The model brings together women’s health providers, pharmacists, and heart and kidney doctors to proactively identify and address hypertension issues in women during and after pregnancy.

The care model outlines clear touchpoints where doctors should contact patients with high blood pressure conditions. It calls for a blood pressure check through remote monitoring within 72 hours of birth, and again seven to 10 days after discharge from the hospital. Blood pressure is also monitored at the mothers’ postpartum visits, recommended at four to six weeks. Patients with hypertension will get follow-

Rural health care

From page 1

cardiovascular research and one of the founders of the RESOLVE initiative. “Rural health care’s problems will never be solved by large, urban academic centers,” Spoon says. “No one is coming to save rural health care. So, we need to think differently. We need a wildly different way to look at our challenges.”

He explains that through RESOLVE, Providence and the University of Montana are seeking “less competition, more collaboration, more sharing of resources. We want to involve all health care systems and hospitals (in our area) in creating better access and care for all.”

Baking the best cake

Bill Wright, Providence chief research officer, explains that the nation’s academic research system can put the most advanced care and treatment out of reach of rural areas because the organizations driving much of the innovation are located far from rural areas and because nonurban health care facilities often lack the infrastructure and resources to innovate.

Wright says many rural areas are under enormous financial and workforce strains. They often do not have the capacity to conduct research in a comprehensive way or to build out innovative ideas to scale.

Spoon and Wright note that large academic medical centers and other innovators have tried to address rural populations’

Intermountain Health cardiovascular study

In a retrospective study, researchers analyzed 218,141 live births involving 157,606 patients across 22 Intermountain Health hospitals between 2017 and 2024. They reviewed electronic medical records for diagnoses of chronic hypertension and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP), including gestational hypertension, preeclampsia, and eclampsia. Patients were then monitored for cardiovascular events for an average of five years following delivery.

up visits for a year to help identify and address risks like diabetes, obesity and high cholesterol.

Part of the care model ensures different care providers are looped in on a woman’s health condition even if that patient is no longer having babies. “It’s a flag for everybody who sees them after that, hey, they had this condition during pregnancy, we need to automatically pay attention to it,” Hesterberg said.

The American College of Cardiology published a Postpartum Hypertension Clinic Development Toolkit as Intermountain was developing its care process model. Hesterberg said the tool kit, which Intermountain used as a resource, had many similarities and overlaps with the care model the system had in development.

Communicating with patients

In their research, the Intermountain caregivers found that compared to other patients, those with hypertensive disorders during pregnancy had “significantly more” cardiovascular risk factors, including obesity, smoking, diabetes, high cholesterol, depression, and lower socioeconomic status.

Under the care model, doctors check in

health care access concerns and to ensure rural areas can benefit from research. However, those experts don’t always have a good understanding of the needs, capabilities and resources of rural providers.

Wright likens the situation to someone showing up with a baked cake that the recipient may not like versus someone taking the time to learn what type of cake the recipient likes best then using the best recipe to bake that type of cake for them.

‘Match made in heaven’

Spoon was born and raised in Missoula then left to obtain an undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana and then a medical degree from the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine & Science in Rochester, Minnesota. He practiced at the Mayo Clinic before returning to Missoula about a decade ago to join the medical staff of the 253-bed Providence St. Patrick. He says he returned to Missoula because he felt a calling to practice in his hometown, population about 78,000.

Spoon says he long has commiserated with clinical colleagues as well as associates at the University of Montana about the difficulty of bringing about significant change through hospital and university partnerships. He and others realized over time that what was needed was a strong hospital, a strong academic institution and a large organization with the resources to bolster their work. He says through RESOLVE, “we have a match made in heaven because we are unifying these three.”

The partners will draw on the clinical expertise of Providence St. Patrick, the research capabilities of the university and the local connections and understanding of those two organizations, as well as the advanced research capabilities of the Provi-

19.7% of patients had a HDP diagnosis, with most cases occurring during the first live birth.

Patients with HDP had significantly more cardiovascular risk factors, including obesity, smoking, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, depression, and lower socioeconomic status.

The severity of HDP correlated with higher cardiovascular risk. Women with chronic hypertension and eclampsia had the greatest risk of future cardiovascular events compared to those without HDP.

with patients about those and other risk factors, such as activity levels, and advise on healthy changes. For example, for patients who have little time for workouts, Hesterberg offers encouragement that moderate activity is beneficial. “I really try to tell patients, if you’re walking 30 minutes five days a week, you are doing enough to have a benefit to your heart and really, actually help lower your risk of long-term heart disease,” she said.

Intermountain’s increased attention to high blood pressure and related risks is already helping. Hesterberg spoke of patients in their 20s and 30s who had blood pressure issues that other doctors had not traced to a cause. When discussing their medical history, the patients revealed they had severe preeclampsia when delivering their first children, and doctors had not warned them of any long-term effects.

“And I said, ‘I think this is why you have high blood pressure now.’ And luckily, we were able to get ahead of it,” Hesterberg said.

Another patient who had high blood pressure during her first pregnancy talked to Hesterberg about minimizing her risk of recurrence while planning for a second pregnancy.

She said knowing why the symptoms

dence system. The university has about 11,000 students. The Providence system has 51 hospitals across seven states.

The three partners have united under an informal joint governance model and a unified operating model. Spoon says they could evolve this into a more formal arrangement. The partners have been fundraising for RESOLVE. They’ve amassed $2.6 million in philanthropic support; they’ve secured two competitive research grants; and they’re awaiting word on two more competitive grants.

From the ground up

The RESOLVE partners are gathering input from in and around Missoula, surveying local health care providers and community members about what needs they want to see addressed, and asking researchers for ideas that could translate into better rural care.

The group will assemble resources around the most pressing challenges and the most promising ideas. They’re pulling together teams of Providence St. Patrick clinicians, university researchers and Providence system research staff.

Wright explains that the approach is unusual because the research ideas and work are being conducted from the ground up — by local people. Normally, ideas are developed outside of rural communities and may not be well suited for local application.

Depth of research know-how

Wright says the key to success is that Providence has a robust research infrastructure that involves about 1,200 active investigators and hundreds of affiliated clinicians working on about 2,200 clinical trials each year.

are occurring comes as a relief to patients. “I think sometimes women are really good at saying: ‘Well my blood pressure is high because I’m too stressed out, I’m not doing the right things, it’s therefore my fault.’ As opposed to: No, there’s a medical condition that happened that is most likely contributing to this,” she said.

Hesterberg said doctors can do a better job in general assessing risk and treating women for heart disease.

“It’s also a really important point for women (to know) about their own health and knowing their own health risk, but then also providers, that we need to take women seriously when they’re having any kind of symptoms,” Hesterberg said.

The extra attention given to mothers is just one way Saint Joseph Hospital fulfills its mission as a Catholic health institution, Hesterberg said.

“One of the big reasons I really like working at Saint Joe’s and working for this organization is we take care of people, regardless of background, of ability to pay,” Hesterberg said. “It’s really about: How do you do the right thing for people? From a moral, spiritual perspective, that’s really fulfilling to be able to say yeah, we need to do this because it’s the right thing for people.”

Those experts will be contributing their knowledge and resources to the RESOLVE clinicians’ and researchers’ work, Wright explains. For instance, they’ll help with paperwork, grant-writing, the institutional review board process, idea testing, research design and data analysis. Wright says this is the type of expertise that many rural clinicians lack.

Spoon says other strengths of the RESOLVE network is the deidentified patient data that Providence St. Patrick can supply for research and the massive database and data analysis the Providence system can supply. Also, the Providence system has been honing expertise in advanced research such as genomics and the application of artificial intelligence that could benefit researchers in Montana.

Foundation to build on

The RESOLVE partners see immediate pathways for research in cardiovascular outcomes, cancer care and emergency response to extreme weather events.

But Spoon says there is virtually no limit to what rural health concerns the research initiative can investigate and improve.

The RESOLVE team anticipates enabling rural providers and academic partners across the state to use the infrastructure and approach they are building. Eventually, rural providers and academics nationwide could participate. Spoon notes that in time there likely will be a brick-and-mortar site where RESOLVE participants can convene in-person to share ideas.

Spoon and Wright say RESOLVE could spur innovation that could greatly improve health care access and outcomes in rural communities.

“We want this to turn into a movement,” says Wright.

FMOL Health doctor spreads palliative care programming across system

By JULIE MINDA

Dr. Mark Kantrow still remembers when it clicked for him exactly how important palliative care is in medicine.

It was around 2006, and he had just attended his first conference on palliative care, at a time when the concept was new to him and to many other clinicians. On a cab ride to the airport for his return trip, Kantrow called his program director back home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

“I remember telling him I felt like I had just been shown a chapter out of the textbook of medicine that nobody knew about,” Kantrow says. “It was like this secret information — like how to engage patients and families and how to address suffering. It was an eye-opening experience for me.”

That experience launched Kantrow into a career — nearly two decades and counting — centered on spreading palliative care to as many clinicians and locations as possible within Baton Rouge-based FMOL Health, formerly Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System.

As system medical director for palliative care, he has been integrating palliative care programming into all nine of the health system’s hospitals. This work has included educating staff and patients about the approach, assembling multidisciplinary teams to deliver this type of care and building patient and family awareness of what FMOL Health hospitals offer.

“What we are doing is addressing patients as a whole person,” Kantrow explains. “We are addressing their suffering based on a deeper understanding of what is important to them.”

Part of a team

Kantrow says before becoming a palliative care practitioner, he was a hospitalist who had been growing frustrated with having to provide medical care in a way that focused almost solely on patients’ medical conditions, and not on the full picture of

Vaccines

From page 1

that’s not fair.

“What’s happening in the CDC is creating more noise. It’s amplifying vaccine hesitancy.”

The new CDC guidelines recommend immunizations against 11 diseases for every child. Vaccinations against COVID-19, RSV, the flu, rotavirus, meningitis and hepatitis A and B are now recommended for those at high risk, or when doctors recommend them in what’s called “shared clinical decision-making.”

In announcing its recommendations, the CDC said the schedule follows “a scientific review of the underlying science, comparing the U.S. child and adolescent immunization schedule with those of peer, developed nations.”

The agency also said the guidelines allow for more flexibility and choice, “with less coercion” and ensure that all the vaccines covered by the previous immunization schedule are still available to anyone who wants them through Affordable Care Act insurance plans and federal insurance programs.

Meanwhile, the American Academy of Pediatrics is sticking with guidelines that call for immunizations against the 18 diseases that for decades had been on the CDC’s schedule. “Health officials did not cite new data justifying the changes but instead appear to have modeled the schedule largely after Denmark’s, which

their broader needs. “I was starting to feel like I had a front row seat to see all of the patients’ suffering,” he says, “but I didn’t have any of the skills to address all the levels of that suffering.”

At the prompting of a sister with FMOL Health’s sponsoring congregation, Kantrow started to learn about palliative care and immediately saw the value. After studying the approach, he began a palliative care consult service at FMOL Health’s flagship hospital, Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge. He says even though he worked hard to educate clinicians, patients and families about the value of the consultations, it took a long time for him to gain acceptance and build momentum for his practice. He explains that many staff and patients mistakenly associated his work solely with dying, and that made clinicians reluctant to welcome him into their healing work.

Over time, Kantrow has proven the value of palliative care to greatly enhance patient, family and staff experience and to improve patient outcomes. That has led to great growth in the service at Our Lady of the Lake and paved the way for Kantrow’s eventual promotion to his current systemlevel role.

has a significantly different population and health care system,” the American Academy of Pediatrics said. “They also did not follow the standard process of consulting the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) during a public meeting.”

According to KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research group, 28 states had announced as of Jan. 20 that they are departing from federal guidelines for some or all childhood vaccines.

Real people, rising cases

Dr. Jesse Goodman, a professor of medicine and infectious diseases and an attending physician at Georgetown University, spoke with other experts about the changed CDC schedule during a webinar hosted Jan. 9 by the Association of Health Care Journalists. He bluntly discussed the symptoms and outcomes for people who contract diseases that can be prevented through vaccinations. For example, he noted that 25% of people who get hepatitis B later develop cancer or cirrhosis.

Goodman said the revised CDC schedule “will definitely cause confusion, indecision and general erosion of confidence, and as a result, access will be reduced, particularly for the disadvantaged, and fewer people will be immunized, resulting in more disease transmission and outbreaks, hospitalizations and deaths.”

In an indication of how hesitancy around vaccinations appears to be affecting the nation’s health, during the same week the CDC issued its new recommendations, the American Academy of Pediatrics announced there were more cases of

at FMOL Health sites.

Kantrow also serves as president of the board of the Louisiana–Mississippi Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. That organization supports advocacy and education in both states.

Mission alignment

Kantrow says a perpetual challenge in palliative care is that it generally does not generate revenue, and so it can mistakenly be seen as a financial drain. But, he says, evidence is showing that palliative care has a positive impact on health care delivery and outcomes and therefore can bolster the services that providers deliver.

Branching out

Kantrow’s focus is to ensure patients and families can access the whole-person approach to medicine that palliative care promotes. This is a formidable challenge in a system with many smaller, rural hospitals with chronic financial and workforce strains.

He’s been working with colleagues throughout FMOL Health’s catchment area in Louisiana and Mississippi to build awareness of palliative care and to gain leadership buy-in. He helps ensure staff at the facilities learn about palliative care. He works with leadership to pull together multidisciplinary teams at each hospital to provide palliative care to patients. He is working with academic partners to offer palliative care education to the providers. He facilitates their clinical training in holistic care, incorporating visits to Our Lady of the Lake. He supports the team in-person and through virtual connections.

He’s made a video series to educate patients and their families and others on palliative care concepts.

Kantrow also helped establish and now directs a palliative care fellowship at Our Lady of the Lake. Some of those fellows are job candidates for palliative care positions

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. Of the 2025 cases, 93% were people who were unvaccinated or their vaccination status was unknown, the CDC said.

Wulff said because childhood diseases had mostly vanished in recent years, most SSM Health clinicians are not used to seeing them. “As measles began to spread, we would get text messages from pediatricians questioning whether antibiotic rashes might, in fact, be measles,” she said.

Following the states

Doctors at SSM Health are suggesting patients follow the vaccine schedule recommended by the pediatricians group. Doctors with the Springfield, Illinois-based Hospital Sisters Health System are doing the same.

“A substantial body of evidence demonstrates that recommended childhood vaccines in the United States are safe, effective and essential for protecting children’s health,” Dr. Leanne M. Yanni, the system’s president and CEO of Illinois Physician Enterprise, said in a statement. “At Hospital Sisters Health System, we support the guidance from respected medical organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, which thoroughly evaluates research and develops evidence-based recommendations for physicians nationwide.”

Dr. Douglas Waite is the senior vice president and chief medical officer for Cov-

Dr. Chris Thomas, FMOL Health vice president and chief quality officer, backs this up. He says that having palliative care providers support patients and families through their suffering “has been critical in improving patient experience measures and length of stay. The expertise of palliative care allows our teams to treat diseases with acknowledgement of families in a manner that truly aligns with our mission.”

Thomas says that multiple metrics watched by health care leaders are moving in a positive direction because of the influence of palliative care. For example, studies suggest that when palliative care is involved early in the care of cancer patients, quality of life and even survival rates can be improved.

Dr. Mary Raven is a palliative care physician and chief of staff at Our Lady of the Lake. She credits Kantrow for building out FMOL Health’s comprehensive palliative care program.

“He not only kick-started the program, but he has been the visionary who has allowed it to grow,” Raven says. “It is because of him that we have full-fledged palliative care teams at all of our system’s hospitals.”

jminda@chausa.org

Visit chausa.org/chworld to read about Kantrow earning an award for his work and to learn about palliative care’s growth in the U.S.

enant Health, which serves patients in several states, including Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Those states have recommended that providers follow the American Academy of Pediatrics schedule, Waite said.

Waite notes that as an infectious disease physician, he knows firsthand the benefits of all 18 previously recommended vaccines and also knows the decades of scientific evidence proving their safety and efficacy. He says the CDC has been an important resource during his career, and he still turns to the agency’s website for information on outbreaks and public health notices. However, the latest changes to the pediatric immunization recommendations have led to confusion among patients and parents.

Waite said providers are having to spend more time addressing parents’ skepticism about immunizations, which results in longer appointments, and in some cases, impacts the doctor-patient relationship.

The distrust of and misinformation about vaccines resulting from the CDC’s new immunization schedule concerns Waite. “It will likely result in more parents declining immunizations,” he said. “As the vaccine coverage in our population decreases, we’re going to see the reemergence of some of these infectious diseases, and children and adults will die from preventable diseases. We have already seen this occur with last year’s measles outbreak. That’s the saddest thing about this.”

vhahn@chausa.org

KEEPING UP

PRESIDENTS/CEOS

Deborah Berini to CEO of Providence Alaska in Anchorage, effective Feb. 23. She was president of SSM Health DePaul Hospital in St. Louis.

BJ Predum to Dignity Health Central Coast Market president. He was California Central Valley Market president. The Central Coast Market includes Arroyo Grande Community Hospital, Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz, French Hospital Medical Center in San Luis Obispo, Marian Regional Medical Center in Santa Maria, Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City, St. John’s Camarillo and St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Ventura County.

Dr. Thomas Gullatt will retire as president of FMOL Health St. Francis in Monroe, Louisiana, on Jan. 8, 2027. As a part of the leadership transition, Jeremy Tinnerello, president of FMOL Health St. Dominic in

Jackson, Mississippi, will become regional president over both the North Louisiana and Jackson markets. Over the coming year, Gullatt and Tinnerello will collaborate to ensure market stability and momentum, and work with FMOL Health leadership to select a new hospital president, according to a press release.

Dr. Timothy Quinn plans to retire as president and CEO of Mercy Cedar Rapids in Iowa on April 3. He had maintained his clinical practice while he was CEO and will continue seeing patients at Cedar Rapids’ MercyCare after he retires as CEO. He also plans to contribute to the development of emerging medical technologies, including those involving artificial intelligence. Mercy is initiating a national search to identify Quinn’s successor. During the search, Greg DeWolf, executive vice president and chief operating officer, will be Mercy’s

on medical ethics for various publications.

“We extend a warm wel

interim president and CEO.

ADMINISTRATIVE CHANGES

Mercy of Chesterfield, Missouri, has made these changes: Brian Day to chief financial officer, Lina Scroggins to chief product officer, and Paul Davis to president of contracting and managed care.

Yulia Hatton to director of mission integration for the Nebraska and Iowa markets of CHI Health of Omaha, Nebraska, part of CommonSpirit Health. Her role covers CHI Health Creighton University Medical Center — Bergan Mercy, CHI Health Lakeside and CHI Health Midlands.

Caitlin Brunell to vice president of Ascension St. Vincent’s Foundation of Jacksonville, Florida.

Organizations within Trinity Health have made these changes: Dr. Lawrence Ward to chief medical officer for Holy Cross Medical Group in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Deacon Matthew Halbach to vice president for mission and campus culture at Mercy College of Health Sciences of Des Moines, Iowa.

ANNIVERSARY

Holy Cross Health of Fort Lauderdale, 70 years.

CHRISTUS Health’s new hospital in Palestine, Texas, connects to a longstanding clinic.

CHRISTUS Health opens hospital in Palestine, Texas

CHRISTUS Health opened a new hospital in Palestine, Texas, early this month.

The more than 30,000-square-foot facility includes a 15-bed emergency department and a 10-bed inpatient hospital. Palestine is about 110 miles southeast of Dallas.

“This facility is more than just new technology or fancy imaging, it is about establishing a ministry of healing,” Barry Lofquist, administrator for CHRISTUS Health Palestine, said in a release about the hospital’s opening.

The hospital is directly connected to the CHRISTUS Magnolia clinic. CHRISTUS Health said the integration of the clinic and hospital allows for smooth transitions between outpatient visits, emergency care and inpatient services.

Bishop Doerfler succeeds Archbishop Mitchell Thomas Rozanski of St. Louis, who served as liaison for six years.

“The Magnolia clinic has served this area for decades and done an amazing job for patients in and around Palestine,” Jason Proctor, president of CHRISTUS Trinity Mother Frances Health System, said in the release. “Today, we expand upon that care, making sure all of your health care needs are met in one location.”

The facility has the Swoop portable MRI, an imaging system that enables bedside MRI scans.

Formation

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integration and formation, has been leading the effort to develop this programming. She is among a sampling of ministry leaders who tell Catholic Health World that CHA expertise, resources and connections have been essential to the success of their formation programming. They say CHA’s “Framework for Ministry Formation” and other resources have provided key guidance on what content is a must and how to structure the programming, ensure it is effective, measure results and use that data to make improvements.

“It’s a tried-and-true framework, and we trust CHA,” says Sr. Maurer. With the CHA resources and connections, she says, “we do not have to reinvent the wheel. The framework is user-friendly, and we can adapt it to our ministry, with all our different facilities. It is so foundational, it will fit everywhere.”

Resources for formation leaders

Forming trustees, executives and staff in the essentials of Catholic health ministry and mission has been of top importance to CHA and its members for decades, particularly as lay leaders assume increasing responsibility in sponsorship of Catholic health systems and facilities. With the declining presence of vowed religious in sponsorship and other leadership roles, the ministry long has recognized it must form laity to assume these roles with proper grounding.

In recent years, CHA’s senior director of ministry formation — currently Darren Henson — and the CHA Ministry Formation Advisory Committee have developed a wealth of formation resources. The goal is to create experiences that invite people who serve in the ministry to connect their personal meaning to their organization’s purpose. Some of these resources include:

The seminal “Framework for Ministry Formation,” which lays out six foundational elements of formation, lists competencies required for ministry formation experts and explains the imperative to build up a community committed to furthering Jesus’ healing ministry.

“Framework for Senior Leadership Formation,” which provides insights and practical approaches for forming top executives. CHA is currently updating this program.

The recently released “Formation for All Workers,” which explains why it is important to form all Catholic health care associates — not just leadership — and describes how that can be done.

“Demonstrating Formation’s Impact,” which explains how and why to use data to show the impact of ministry formation on participants and their organizations.

These and other resources are available at chausa.org/focus-areas/ministry -formation/resources.

A strategic priority

Sr. Maurer as well as Ascension Vice President of Ministry Formation Sarah Reddin and SSM Health System Vice President of Formation and Spirituality Joshua Allee are among the nine ministry leaders who serve on the CHA Ministry Formation Advisory Committee. They also help lead formation programming at their own systems.

CHA member systems have built out comprehensive formation programming

It is a strategic priority for systems and facilities that are part of the Catholic health ministry to create comprehensive formation programming that touches as many sponsors, trustees, leaders and associates as possible. The systems have developed a range of offerings so that they can reach these groups in a variety of ways with multiple types of content on an ongoing basis.

Some examples from several systems include:

Ascension has offered its cohortbased formation program for top executive leaders since around the time of the system’s creation. The longest-standing program, Executive Ministry Leadership Program, is in its 20th cohort. That program includes five courses, seven inperson retreats and a capstone integration project. Ascension monitors the impact of the formative experience, evaluating to gather evidence of change in how participants lead the ministry.

A variety of opportunities are available to mid-level clinical, operational and administrative leaders to grow competencies as leaders of ministry. These include integrations within programs hosted by departments across Ascension as well as standalone offerings such as the 15-yearold Foundations of Ministry Leadership Program and the newer Roots of Ministry Leadership Program. Impact measurement is tracked to understand how participants are growing and the changes they are making in the lives of people in the communities they serve.

The health ministry is intentional about including formative programming in the rhythms of all associates’ work life. Content to form employees at all levels is delivered at orientation, during onboarding, on units, in clinics, for remote workers and during special occasions. Ascension’s formation leaders also provide short bursts of content for leaders to share with people in their departments throughout the year

to deepen their engagement with topics relevant to the system’s Catholic identity.

SSM Health provides a wide range of formation programming, including its Executive Leader Formation, its Foundations of Leadership for mid-level management, formative content at orientation, content made for delivery in “building block” format, heritage pilgrimages, content delivered during heritage weeks and religious feast days, and “touchstones” of additional content delivered throughout the course of a year at SSM Health and its facilities.

The Executive Leader Formation program is a 2½-year, in-person experience in which executives gather quarterly. It is structured as cohorts and includes time discussing how executive leadership in the ministry is a calling, and the implications of that. Participants learn to integrate personal spiritual practices into their work life, and they make site visits and volunteer to integrate their studies with hands-on opportunities for ministry.

The Foundations course is a cohortbased program for mid-level managers that runs for a year. Offered in SSM Health’s major markets, it includes in-person meetings and can include formative experiences.

All SSM Health leaders who take the Executive Leader Formation or Foundations offerings report on how they are applying the concepts they’ve learned to

their work and how they’re sharing what they’ve learned with others.

Duluth Benedictine Ministries is the ministerial public juridic person formed about two years ago to sponsor ministries founded or run by the Benedictine Sisters of St. Scholastica Monastery. That MPJP is offering its first formal formation program for leaders, called Benedictine Leadership Formation. About 20 leaders representing the various health, eldercare and education ministries sponsored by the MPJP are part of the initial cohort that began about two years ago and concludes in the spring. The group convenes four times in-person at the MPJP’s headquarters in Duluth, which also is the location of the sisters’ monastery and several of its ministries.

Benedictine Leadership Formation includes teaching and discussion on the essentials of Catholic health care and higher education ministry, including modules on Benedictine spirituality, mission integration, Catholic social teaching, ethics, leadership and related topics. The course includes presentations from experts inside and outside of the sponsored ministries, engagement with the sisters, small group discussion, exploration of historical places on the monastery grounds in Duluth and a call to spread the learnings when the leaders return to their organizations.

All of the programming draws heavily upon CHA formation resources.

— JULIE MINDA

work around measuring the impact of formation, through quantitative and qualitative performance indicators. She says Ascension formation leaders have been intentional about listening to the people who are taking part in the programming and using their insights and feedback to determine what changes are needed.

Allee describes similar work happening at SSM Health, which has about 55,000 employees and affiliated providers in 23 hospitals and at additional care sites across four states. He says that especially when it comes to senior leadership formation, there is an emphasis at SSM Health on ensuring formation participants integrate what they’ve learned in the ministries where they work. Having formation participants do this enables the learnings to spread far and wide at SSM Health, he says.

entirety of what it means to be a part of and to advance the ministry. She says it is “an exciting moment,” as ministry members join together under a shared understanding of formation.

She notes that health care leaders inside and outside the ministry have been recognizing how valuable it is for organizations and their associates to have clarity around their identity and purpose. “Formation has been called out as a strategic goal” and an effective tool for improving performance, she notes.

Reddin says since Ascension’s creation, it has been building and evolving its formation programming and has played a key role in shaping CHA’s formation resources. Last year, Ascension ministry formation leadership decided to adopt CHA’s formation framework as its own. Reddin says they did this because they recognized the importance of backing and using a standardized approach. They recognized that the CHA framework reinforces what ministry members hold in common and speaks to the

Allee says the CHA formation resources have played a critical role as SSM Health has evolved its programming. The CHA resources have influenced the conceptual framework, logistics and content of the system’s formation programs, he says. He notes that the idea of connecting formation to the “head, hands and hearts” of participants — a concept drawn from CHA resources — has underpinned much of SSM Health’s programming.

He adds that in addition to relying on the materials, he’s also found great value in the

network CHA has fostered among ministry formation experts.

Like LEGO blocks

At Ascension, Reddin says, leaders in formation have been focusing in recent years on ensuring that their work touches all associates and that it promotes their flourishing — mind, body and spirit. That 15-state system has about 97,000 associates and 23,100 aligned providers at 91 wholly owned or consolidated hospitals as well as at 29 partner hospitals where it has an ownership interest, 26 senior living facilities and a network of other sites.

Reddin says the system is doing a lot of

Participating in formation experiences can be “a beautiful feeling — you feel this inspiration — and you want other attendees to feel the same.”

— Sr. Lisa Maurer

At Duluth Benedictine Ministries, the Benedictine Leadership Formation program that Sr. Maurer developed with her team is new. This spring, the first cohort of executives from ministries sponsored by the MPJP will complete the program, which spans nearly two years. Sr. Maurer says the MPJP is relying on formation participants to bring what they learn in the in-person program back to their home facilities. Sponsored ministries include more than 30 eldercare campuses, the five Catholic hospitals within Essentia Health, two independent hospitals and a college.

She says she’s continuing to rely on CHA’s support and resources as she and her team build out the programming. She likens the various CHA formation materials to LEGO blocks, saying, “CHA gives us the pieces, and we put them together.”

She says that implementing the formation programming is giving the Benedictine Sisters a fresh opportunity to pass along their charism and legacy to the laity who are carrying it on. She says participating in formation experiences can be “a beautiful feeling — you feel this inspiration — and you want other attendees to feel the same.”

Taking part in formation is like a gift, she says, “and gifts are not meant to be kept,” but to be given to others. jminda@chausa.org

Ministry systems use formation to unify even far-flung staff, affiliates

CHA’s ‘Framework for Ministry Formation’ explains how to do this effectively, say experts in the ministry

By JULIE MINDA

It can be a challenge for Catholic health systems that have international outposts or affiliates to ensure that those locations function as part of the whole and that those far-flung staff feel connected to and engaged with the broader organization.

A sampling of mission leaders at U.S.-based Catholic health systems with international operations or affiliates say their systems are finding that ministry formation can be an effective tool for unifying employees and affiliates — even across great distances — under a common culture, mission and identity.

These experts say CHA’s “Framework for Ministry Formation” and related resources have proven essential in developing these programs, building out the content and making sure it is tailored to the needs of their associates and affiliates — wherever they are located.

“It can be challenging to balance the local realities (of our individual ministries) with the alignment we’re seeking as a system, but we are all part of a beautiful global community that is rooted in shared values and a shared purpose,” says Ryan Conklin, program director of ministry formation for CHRISTUS Health. He says the complexion of these ministries “reflects the universality of the Catholic Church and of Catholic health care.”

Speaking the same language

Conklin acknowledges that unifying individual locations can be difficult even within the same city or state, much less across multiple countries. CHRISTUS Health has about 68,000 associates and physicians across three states and three Central and South American nations. Its international locations are the CHRISTUS Muguerza Sistema de Salud, with several dozen hospitals across seven Mexican states; the CHRISTUS Colombia partnership covering two acute care and inpatient facilities and three outpatient clinics and surgery centers; and the Red de Salud UC CHRISTUS Health partnership involving CHRISTUS Health and the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. The Chilean venture involves 15 facilities.

Conklin says as with its U.S. ministries, CHRISTUS Health developed its formation programming for its Central and South American staff and affiliates organically, meeting with their leadership and some of their staff in-person to tailor formation programs to their localities. The main goals, he

says, are to provide board members, executives, mid-level managers and frontline workers with the tools they need to understand and embrace CHRISTUS Health’s mission. This way, they can all feel a part of the same culture and “speak the same language” when it comes to the Catholic identity of the system, he says.

He explains that all CHRISTUS Health facilities use similarly structured formation programs. For all colleagues, formative concepts are woven into orientation, celebrations, reflections, mission storytelling and prayers. All ministries have access to separate, formal programs for board member, executive leader and mid-level leader formation.

Conklin says, “We are crossing borders to pull people into the same anthropological principles of who we are and what we are called to.”

Ascension ministry partners

Ascension, which has about 97,000 associates and 23,100 aligned providers across 15 U.S. states, contracts with companies in India, Sri Lanka and the Philippines for back-office services, including information technology, finance and revenue cycle support. These overseas staff are employed by partner companies, not by Ascension. Ascension calls these staff “ministry partners.”

Chad Raith, now in a new role as Ascension Texas chief mission integration officer, says Ascension’s chief information officer had experienced the profound impact of mission integration within his own team and therefore wanted to implement formation programming to engage the ministry partners and connect them to the Ascension culture, values and purpose.

Raith led that effort, traveling overseas to build relationships with the local leadership and staff of those companies and to

work with them to tailor Ascension’s formation programming to those companies’ idiosyncrasies. Working closely with the central formation team at the system, this effort included integrating formation elements into orientation and onboarding and creating sessions where employees learn about spirituality, reflection and prayer to discover connections between their own personal spirituality and their work as a partner of Ascension. The U.S. team also tailored Ascension’s leadership formation for the overseas companies.

Ascension Ministry Formation Director Alyssa Foll says in building out the programming, Ascension prioritized cultural humility and respecting the local people, their culture and their heritage. The team implementing the programming sought the buy-in of the companies’ leadership, including by providing hard evidence of formation’s positive impact on indicators such as associate engagement and retention. The team also identified champions on the companies’ staff to bring passion and enthusiasm to the programs.

Raith and Foll say this work has resulted in these ministry partners feeling more engaged and personally invested in their roles, and some of the staff have said the formation changed their lives for the better.

Foll says “people find meaning through the connections” they experience in formation programs.

Connection at Bon Secours Ireland

Bon Secours Ireland, a market of Bon Secours Mercy Health, has a legacy that dates to 1861. Bon Secours Ireland, which has five hospitals, is wholly owned by Bon Secours Mercy Health. That system has 47 hospitals and about 60,000 employees between the U.S. and Ireland.

ours Mercy Health has adapted its Foundations of Catholic Health executive program, its senior leadership course and its Called to Serve programming for all associates to the needs of the localities.

Weiss says, “The goal is to deepen their awareness and understanding of our identity as a ministry of the Catholic Church.” Taluja says, “We’re helping people surface their spirituality.”

Weiss adds that the system team, which is based in the U.S., is intentional about being culturally sensitive and culturally relevant when building out the programming. Taluja adds, “Formation is invitational.”

Bon Secours Mercy Health has opened a facility in the Philippines and is working with on-the-ground contacts to develop formation programming for that wholly owned ministry.

Providence ‘bridge building’ in

India

Since 2020, Providence St. Joseph Health has operated a center in Hyderabad, India, that provides health care technology and innovation services. Providence has more than 122,000 caregivers in 51 hospitals and a network of other sites in seven U.S. states. It has about 1,600 employees in Hyderabad. Martin Schreiber, vice president of Providence’s Mission Leadership Institute, says Providence knew it was essential to ground Hyderabad staff in the mission, vision and values of the health system. Providence hired a Sister of St. Joseph who lives in India as mission leader to implement the formation programming.

The core initiative Providence has tailored to staff in India is a leadership formation program. It includes five modules covering essentials about Providence’s Catholic identity and mission. The programming includes in-person presentations, videos, testimonials, teachings about Providence’s heritage and sessions on spirituality.

Stephen Taluja is chief sponsorship and ministry formation officer for the system and Bon Secours Ireland, and Lyle Weiss is system director of spirituality and ministry formation. They say given that Bon Secours Mercy Health has a long history and storied legacy in Ireland and nearly 70% of Irish people identify as Catholic, there is a unique opportunity to discuss the ministry’s legacy, culture and Catholic identity.

Bon Secours Mercy Health has used formation programming as a vehicle to inculcate Bon Secours Ireland leadership and staff into foundational aspects of the organization and to help them connect their own purpose to that of the system. Bon Sec-

Schreiber explains that Providence demonstrates reverence for the participants’ personal faiths, seeking to “build bridges” of connection between their spirituality and the spiritual heritage of Providence. Providence is not taking anything away from the participants’ heritage, it is drawing parallels, he explains.

Schreiber says between encouraging those who complete the leadership formation to spread the learnings to their staffs, and offering formative experiences directly to those staff members, Providence is ensuring “formation is part of the culture.”

“This formation program makes us all aware there is lots of common ground,” he says, “and through it we are embracing our diversity, inclusion and equity. And the bridge building goes both ways.” jminda@chausa.org

CHA joins effort to help dioceses coordinate response to immigration crackdown

Catholic IMMpact’s goal: ‘Translate compassion and prayer into coordinated action’

During a Jan. 21 webinar launching the Catholic Immigrant Prophetic Action Project, Bishop Brendan Cahill of Victoria, Texas, and chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration, mentioned the “special message” on immigration released by the U.S. bishops when they met last fall.

That statement said in part: “We oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people. We pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement. We pray that the Lord may guide the leaders of our nation, and we are grateful for past and present opportunities to dialogue with public and elected officials.”

Bishop Cahill said the discussion around that statement “showed the unity of the bishops on the dignity, God given, of every human person, and our almost unanimous desire to make public we oppose indiscriminate mass deportation.”

He noted that the bishops began an initiative in November, You Are Not Alone, that calls on Catholics to stand with immigrants and their families amid the Trump administration’s rapid deportation efforts. The initiative is part of the USCCB’s broader Justice for Immigrants campaign. CHA is a member of that campaign.

Dylan Corbett, founding executive director of Hope Border Institute, said during the webinar that what’s been commonplace along the nation’s southern border in El Paso “is now touching every corner of the country: the inflaming of racial bigotry, unchecked violence, the militarization of law and order, the widening of the gap between neighbors and the undermining of human fraternity.”

Corbett said that based on a social tradition rooted in values such as human dignity, Catholics are called to act.

“Catholics’ historic contribution as Catholics right now needs to be in the public square, in coordinated and collective action, promoting healthy tension, overcoming polarities, building peace, moving beyond the fracturing and the blame seeking and the side picking,” he said. “This is what evangelization looks like in 2026. Productive tension is the pathway towards meaningful change.”

In her remarks in the webinar, Elisabeth Román, president of the National Catholic Council for Hispanic Ministry, said the initiative, Catholic IMMpact for short, is meant to help “dioceses and parishes and organizations translate compassion and prayer into coordinated action.”

She added: “We are living in times of profound urgency, and we must call it out and name it honestly. This is not only a humanitarian crisis, it is a spiritual crisis, because when human dignity is treated as disposable, the moral fabric of society begins to tear, and when the church is silent, the world begins to believe that silence is permission.”

CHA is one of several Catholic organizations supporting regional diocesan convenings focused on the Catholic community’s response to the ongoing mass deportations of immigrants.

The first of the gatherings was in December in Providence, Rhode Island. That convening was hosted by Bishop Bruce Lewandowski. It was titled “Witness to Hope: Responding to Mass Deportations.” The Archdiocese of Hartford, Connecticut, was a co-sponsor and people from six dioceses participated. Two more convenings are scheduled: March 12 in Phoenix and May 6 in Detroit.

The topics addressed in the daylong gatherings include the church’s teaching and position on immigration, the end of the “sensitive locations” policy that had protected places such as churches and hospitals from detentions, and how to accompany immigrants. Each session is being sponsored by a bishop, who invites other bishops in the region to participate.

The gatherings are coordinated by the Center for Migration Studies of New York, a Catholic think tank focused on immigra-

tion policy, and the Hope Border Institute, a Catholic organization that advocates for immigrants nationally and serves the immigrant community in and around El Paso, Texas. Other organizations besides CHA that are sponsoring the gatherings are the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholic Charities USA, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network and Jesuit Refugee Service-USA.

Kathy Curran, senior director of public policy at CHA, said the involvement of the various groups demonstrates that the church and its ministries “are united in our commitment to the well-being of immigrants.” The groups are supporting the gatherings by attending and providing speakers.

Curran said CHA’s participation is important and appropriate for several reasons:

CHA members serve immigrants in their hospitals and clinics every day.

Protecting the health and well-being of immigrants is deeply rooted in CHA’s

mission and values as a ministry of the Catholic Church.

Participating in the gatherings is consistent with CHA’s commitment to defend human dignity and its vision of promoting human flourishing.

The two organizations coordinating the convenings are leading a broader initiative focused on responding to the immigration crackdown. That initiative, Catholic Immigrant Prophetic Action Project, or Catholic IMMpact, officially launched Jan. 21.

In launching the initiative, Dylan Corbett, founding executive director of Hope Border Institute, referenced a comment by Pope Leo XIV in an address on Jan. 9. The pontiff said “every migrant is a person and, as such, has inalienable rights that must be respected in every situation.”

In addition to the regional convenings, the Hope Border Institute and the Center for Migration Studies are offering direct outreach to bishops and dioceses to implement plans to help immigrants. They are also offering advice on rapid response for dioceses in areas targeted by immigration crackdowns.

AI Ethics in Catholic Health

A conference sponsored by the Center for Theology and Ethics in Catholic Health and the Institute for the Liberal Arts at Boston College

MARCH 20-21 AT BOSTON COLLEGE

The “Artificial Intelligence, Authentic Mercy: Navigating AI Ethics in Catholic Health” conference will bring together physicians, nurses, health care administrators, biomedical engineers, technologists, theologians and ethicists to explore the opportunities and challenges presented by AI in Catholic health care settings. The goal is to ethically analyze AI in health care through the lens of Catholic moral teaching and theological ethics.

THEOLOGYANDETHICS.ORG/EVENTS