Meet ‘Sister Soil’ 2 Four generations of nurses 3 Executive changes 7 PERIODICAL RATE PUBLICATION
APRIL 2024 VOLUME 40, NUMBER 4
“They want closure for themselves. And they want their baby to be remembered — that they did exist, they had a story, they had a purpose, they were part of the family.”
HEALING FROM LOSS
Closure of rural facilities is ‘wake-up call’ for nation, says HSHS head By JULIE MINDA
Ministry facilities help families in a holistic way when those families are experiencing infant loss, including by providing an array of mementos. This sampling of items is from the Chesterfield, Missouri-based Mercy system; the St. Louis-based SSM Health system; and Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, New Jersey.
Ministry facilities support families grieving stillbirth or miscarriage
Personalized mementos can help families cope with loss of a baby
By JULIE MINDA
By JULIE MINDA
When Lisa Logan started working in neonatal nursing more than 40 years ago, there generally was little formal programming at most hospitals to help parents who experienced miscarriage or stillbirth. The death of a baby was by and large a taboo subject in society — and sometimes even in hospitals. Now a neonatal clinical nurse educator and bereavement coordinator at Mercy Hospital Springfield in Missouri, Logan says times, thankfully, have changed. The medical field has evolved greatly in understanding infant loss and the devastating impact
When Beth Pahnke of Waunakee, Wisconsin, recently put her 1994 wedding dress into her garage sale, a customer mentioned that her dress could serve a higher purpose — she could donate it. An online search revealed she could give her dress to nearby SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital — Madison, where a hospital volunteer transforms donated wedding dresses into burial gowns for babies. “I hadn’t heard of this before, but it was a no-brainer to donate the dress,” Pahnke explains. “I experienced a stillbirth many years ago. You don’t forget it. I moved forward, but I understand what
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Providence to expand co-caring model that adds virtual nurses to the team By DALE SINGER
When a rare snowstorm hit large swaths of Texas in January, numerous CHRISTUS Health clinics had to cancel and reschedule appointments, answer patients’ questions and provide them with updates. Nurses with a company called Conduit Health Partners, which CHRISTUS signed on with last year to handle such calls, were able to contact all affected patients to notify them of the cancellations, work with them to set up new appointments, and field questions and concerns. The nurses handled more than 3,000 calls in one day. “We even found that since patients had access to these nurses by phone, patient
Amid a satisfying career in nursing, Brandie Wilson wasn’t necessarily looking for another job. But she was too intrigued about the opportunity at Covenant Medical Center in her hometown of Lubbock, Texas, not to check it out. She’s glad she did. The hospital’s co-caring model Wilson of virtual nursing showed her a whole new way to practice. Working from home, she can respond to a patient’s push of a button and join a streamlined, modern medical team. “I did emergency room nursing for so long that in my mind, everything had to be stat and now and how many patients could I physically get to in one hour?” she explained. “It was just rush, rush, rush. “When I got here, I had to learn to take a step back and realize that it was no longer that way. I could take the time to not talk. The patients didn’t need to hear me talk. They just needed to be listened to and be
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Systems partner with nurse-led call center to improve patient experience By JULIE MINDA
Nurse Deepa Khetia handles transfer center requests for Conduit Health Partners. She since has been promoted to account manager.
Hospital Sisters Health System announced early this year that it would close its two Western Wisconsin hospitals. HSHS’s physician network partner, Prevea Health, is closing all of its locations in that region. HSHS said multiple factors led to the closure of HSHS Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire and HSHS St. Joseph’s Hospital in Chippewa Falls. These factors included “prolonged operational and financial stress related to lingering impacts of the pandemic, inflation, Boatwright workforce constraints, local market challenges and other industrywide trends,” according to a press release. HSHS President and CEO Damond Boatwright spoke to Catholic Health World about the closures and the implications for