Centers provide ready access to care, referrals
By JULIE MINDA
Nearly 60 percent of U.S. adults with a mental illness have not received treatment for their conditions. And nearly a quarter of adults with mental illness reported that they have been unable to receive the treatment they sought.
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By JULIE MINDA
Pandemic-related shutdowns have dealt a powerful blow to the U.S. workforce. Unemployment hit its highest point since the Great Depression.
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Rising to the Call
Dr. Nikhil Jagan, a critical care and pulmonology physician at CHI Health St. Francis hospital in Grand Island, Nebraska, is among the team of clinicians that has treated COVID-19 patients at the 159-bed, community hospital, part of the CommonSpirit Health system.
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By LISA EISENHAUER
Sr. Anthony Veilleux, O CARM, has seen firsthand the ill effects that visitation restrictions imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic have had on some nursing home residents.
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By JULIE MINDA
When the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services advised March 13 that all long-term care facilities strictly limit visitation and communal activities, few could have foreseen that the restrictions would stretch into late summer and beyond.
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By JULIE MINDA
Sept. 21, 2020
For the many employees of Providence St. Joseph, PeaceHealth and CommonSpirit who lost their homes, have had to evacuate or whose lives have otherwise been upended by wildfires in Oregon or California, there have been many immediate worries: Where to stay?
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By JULIE MINDA
Sept. 18, 2020
Catholic health facilities in regions of the western United States that are being ravaged by wildfires are in disaster response mode.
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By LISA EISENHAUER
Sept. 18, 2020
Dr. Ryan Cudahy, a family and sports medicine physician who practices in the San Francisco area, said that while he has not seen a sharp increase in patients with wildfire-related injuries or conditions, his practice is hearing from patients who are unsure whether the respiratory ailments they are experiencing are from the fires or coronavirus.
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By JULIE MINDA
Sept. 8, 2020
The highly destructive windstorm that crossed the Midwest Aug. 10 wreaked havoc in communities throughout Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan.
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Rising to the Call
Sept. 8, 2020
Dr. Keith Frey, chief medical officer for Dignity Health Arizona, is responsible for physician integration and engagement, evidence-based practice and system redesign, and physician leadership development.
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By NANCY FOWLER
Sept. 4, 2020
Last spring, as Avera Health ramped up to be a trusted source of COVID-19 information and help patients navigate care, the Sioux Falls, South Dakota-based health system paid particular attention to communications with non-English speakers.
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By KATHLEEN NELSON
Sept. 2, 2020
Just as childhood abuse, neglect and family dysfunction can have lasting effects on an individual's mental and physical health, systemic racism, generational poverty and related trauma can endanger the health and well-being of an entire community.
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By LISA EISENHAUER
Sept. 1, 2020
Updated Sept. 4, 2020
After Hurricane Laura smashed ashore on the western side of Louisiana's Gulf Coast last week, workers from Our Lady of Lourdes Women's and Children's Hospital in Lafayette came to the aid of some of the massive storm's tiniest victims.
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By LISA EISENHAUER
Sept. 1, 2020
When Sondra Norder got the call that a nearby residential care facility was on fire and the patients who had been evacuated needed other accommodations, she issued a call of her own to her staff at St. Paul Elder Services in Kaukauna, Wisconsin.
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By LISA EISENHAUER
Aug. 28, 2020
When Providence St. Joseph Health compiled its latest data on the death rate from COVID-19 in its hospitals in early August, the numbers brought some good news: the rate was down 40% from where it stood after the first three months of the pandemic.
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By NANCY FOWLER
Aug. 26, 2020
Any cancer diagnosis may come as a shock but a lung cancer diagnosis can be particularly shattering.
Statistically, it’s more deadly than any other cancer, with more than half of patients dying within a year of diagnosis, according to the American Lung Association.
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By KIM VAN OOSTEN
Sept. 1, 2020
Several of the sacraments that ministry pastoral care departments administer are highly intimate, involving close personal interaction and touch.
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By JULIE MINDA
Sept. 1, 2020
Chaplains in the Catholic ministry have been a supportive presence among hospital staff caring for COVID-19 patients, helping staff process and cope with pandemic-related trauma, grief and exhaustion.
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By JULIE MINDA
Sept. 1, 2020
The coronavirus has had a big impact on pastoral care in Catholic health systems. At the outset of the pandemic, outpatient and elective inpatient services were canceled, or greatly restricted. Hospitals across the country prohibited in-person visits.
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By JULIE MINDA
Sept. 1, 2020
Chaplains throughout the Catholic health ministry have been serving as a type of stress release valve for hospital staff who are feeling burned out by the pandemic and for COVID-19 patients who may fear for their lives.
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By JULIE MINDA
Sept. 1, 2020
On a Friday morning in early June, after months of a precautionary lockdown against coronavirus, 40 residents of St. Andre Health Care of Biddeford, Maine, sat, socially distanced, in chairs, benches and wheelchairs around the perimeter of the eldercare facility's parking lot. A long parade of festooned cars wove its way slowly toward them.
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By JULIE MINDA
Sept. 1, 2020
In mid to late August, schools across the U.S. began resuming classes — with some of them offering just distance learning; some, in-person instruction; and some, a hybrid of the two.
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By LISA EISENHAUER
Sept. 1, 2020
While scattered districts across the country that reopened for in-person classes have seen immediate outbreaks of COVID-19, some school-based health care workers say they are confident schools can operate without jeopardizing the health of students and staff in communities where the rate of the virus is low and strict precautions are observed.
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By LISA EISENHAUER
Aug. 11, 2020
Perhaps it's only fitting that Mercy Hospital Oklahoma City – South opened its doors in the middle of a crisis, since its origins trace back to another one.
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Rising to the Call
Aug. 10, 2020
Dr. Erynn Elleby is a family practitioner with the HSHS Medical Group Family Medicine–Shiloh in Southern Illinois. From March to early June, she volunteered to work one day a week at one of the seven respiratory clinics Hospital Sisters Health System set up in central and Southern Illinois to screen patients for coronavirus and provide first line, outpatient care.
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By JULIE MINDA
School districts and administrators across the U.S. have been working closely with their state and local health and education departments and other agencies to determine whether their schools will use distance learning, in-person learning or a hybrid of the two modes when classes resume in a few weeks.
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By NANCY FOWLER
July 30, 2020
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Marlene DonVito of Brea, California, regularly visited with her grandchildren, went shopping and enjoyed dining out. One grandson picked her up for Mass every Sunday then took her out to breakfast.
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July 30, 2020
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has appointed Archbishop-Designate Mitchell Thomas Rozanski as the bishops' conference liaison to the CHA Board of Trustees.
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By LISA EISENHAUER
Aug. 1, 2020
A weekend meal program started in March has helped to nourish families in an impoverished section of southeast Canton, Ohio, and provided a spiritual lift to the group from Mercy Medical Center behind it.
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Rising to the Call
July 29, 2020
In March, when the first COVID-19 patients were admitted to the intensive care unit at Platte Valley Medical Center, in Brighton, Colorado, patient advocate Lori Fensterman was tasked with providing clinical updates to anxious and frightened family members.
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Rising to the Call
July 24, 2020
When about one-third of the residents and staff of the Benedictine Health Center at Innsbruck in New Brighton, Minnesota, tested positive for COVID-19 in March, staff quickly converted the long-term care facility's transitional care unit into a COVID-19 isolation unit.
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Rising to the Call
July 23, 2020
Corinne Sieker, infection preventionist at St. Paul Elder Services in Kaukauna, Wisconsin, heads the long-term care organization's efforts to protect its elderly population from coronavirus infection.
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By LISA EISENHAUER
July 22, 2020
While Americans remain divided on whether wearing protective masks helps contain the spread of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, doctors and infection control experts at several Catholic health systems say they have no doubts.
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Sisters, brothers provide presence, prayer, PPE
By JULIE MINDA
July 20, 2020
Sisters and brothers in congregations that founded Catholic health systems are staying actively engaged with the leadership, clinicians, staff and patients of hospitals and long-term care sites, offering support and encouragement through the long trial of the pandemic.
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By KATHLEEN NELSON
Aug. 1, 2020
After months of discernment and discussion, the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, San Antonio, distilled their vision for the future in five words:
Human dignity knows no borders.
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By NANCY FOWLER
Aug. 1, 2020
Growing up in southeastern Michigan, the six Vecore brothers and sisters shared everything from camping trips to backyard baseball games to their Catholic faith. As adults, the siblings continue to celebrate holidays and birthdays together, along with their parents and their combined six children.
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By JULIE MINDA
Aug. 1, 2020
Sr. Peggy Martin, OP, retired June 30 as executive vice president of sponsorship and governance for Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health, capping off decades of service to the Catholic health ministry.
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By LISA EISENHAUER
June 25, 2020
Pamela Mitchell-Boyd remembers exactly when the breadth of the racial disparities of the coronavirus pandemic hit her full bore.
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By LISA EISENHAUER and JULIE MINDA
June 26, 2020
While some organizations are warning that the COVID-19 pandemic could spell doom for many rural hospitals that were already on shaky financial ground before the crisis, several executives with rural Catholic hospitals say they expect their organizations to withstand the health emergency with government help.
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By SR. MARY HADDAD, RSM
June 26, 2020
The coronavirus pandemic, which is the greatest public health crisis that most of us have faced in our lifetime, has presented Catholic health care with immense and unprecedented challenges in the span of just a few months.
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By LISA EISENHAUER
June 25, 2020
AMITA Health and three Catholic hospitals in Chicago are among 36 signatories to a statement denouncing "systemic racism" and vowing to help bring the "sweeping change that is needed to ensure health equity across the city and particularly in our most vulnerable neighborhoods."
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By LISA EISENHAUER
June 24, 2020
Catholic ministries across the nation have joined the outcry against police brutality and systemic racism.
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By PATRICIA CORRIGAN
June 25, 2020
"Hunker down." That's the message many medical centers and municipalities are broadcasting throughout the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic. But how is that message received in communities that have no comparable phrase in their native languages?
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By LISA EISENHAUER
June 23, 2020
Among the many mysteries physicians and researchers are trying to solve regarding COVID-19 is why the deadly virus may be correlating with severe strokes in a small number of patients under the age of 50 who typically wouldn't be considered at high risk.
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By KATHLEEN NELSON
Grounded in tradition and faith, each member of the CHA 2020 class of Tomorrow's Leaders is advancing the work of the founders of the Catholic health ministry. Their intelligence, resourcefulness and enthusiasm will help Catholic health care navigate through the challenges that lie ahead, and do so with an unblinkered commitment to care for the poor and vulnerable. Here is a look at the contributions of this year's honorees.
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Lifetime Achievement Award
By NANCY FRAZIER O'BRIEN
June 15, 2020
Johnny Cox has had many jobs during his lifetime: nurse, ethicist, professor, hospice director, mission leader, health system sponsor. But the role he most identifies with is healer.
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Sister Carol Keehan Award
By MARY DELACH LEONARD
June 12, 2020
For more than 40 years, Jane Graf has championed efforts to provide safe, affordable housing for vulnerable Americans — the elderly, people with special needs, low-income families and those experiencing homelessness — because good health and a good home go hand in hand.
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Sister Concilia Moran Award
By MARY DELACH LEONARD
June 11, 2020
Patricia Casey adds the hashtag #OneKidCounts to social media posts about her groundbreaking program that connects St. Louis area children who have special health care needs with the first responders who answer their emergencies.
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Achievement Citation
By LISA EISENHAUER
June 9, 2020
When someone reports maltreatment of a child in the greater Anchorage area, Alaska CARES is at the ready to help coordinate a response that is both compassionate and culturally sensitive.
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By LISA EISENHAUER
June 10, 2020
CHRISTUS Good Shepherd Medical Center-Longview in northeast Texas is giving some patients who visit the emergency center at its NorthPark campus the option of seeing a provider without ever leaving their cars.
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By LISA EISENHAUER
June 9, 2020
Although the pandemic kept health ministry leaders from gathering in person at CHA's annual Catholic Health Assembly for the first time in 105 years, hundreds convened online Monday for an inspiring and forward-looking virtual version of the event.
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By JULIE MINDA
June 9, 2020
The coronavirus pandemic that has been fundamentally altering life in the U.S. for months and the civil unrest that has been shaking the nation for weeks are adding urgency to long-standing failings in the health system and introducing unexpected challenges.
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By JULIE MINDA
June 9, 2020
In the view of futurist Jamie Metzl, the world will never be the same after the pandemic — it will be transformed either for the better or for the worse.
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June 9, 2020
During CHA's annual Membership Assembly — this year held virtually June 8 — CHA members elected three new board members and installed new board leadership.
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