Jan. 23, 2021
As mission departments in Catholic health care facilities are looking toward mid-February, they may be struggling to determine how best to mark the occasion of Ash Wednesday, a day when Catholics do penance as they ponder the certainty of death and the promise of Christ's resurrection.
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By JULIE MINDA
"I am rolling up my sleeves to help protect me and my loved ones."
"I am rolling up my sleeves so our residents can get back to normal."
"I am rolling up my sleeves so I can go and visit my grandma."
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When Jan Hamilton-Crawford received her COVID-19 inoculation from a CVS pharmacy worker on Dec. 28 at Saint Mary Home in West Hartford, Connecticut, a public relations representative from Trinity Health Senior Communities of New England was on hand to capture the moment on video.
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By LISA EISENHAUER
Colleagues cheered as Greg Newsham, a registered nurse who specializes in wound and ostomy care, became the first of the frontline workers at Mercy Hospital St. Louis to get a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for COVID-19.
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Many ethical considerations have arisen regarding the development and distribution of vaccines for COVID-19.
Catholic Health World Associate Editor Lisa Eisenhauer asked Jason Eberl, a professor of health care ethics and director of the Albert Gnaegi Center for Health Care Ethics at Saint Louis University, for his perspective on some of those issues.
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By LISA EISENHAUER
ST. LOUIS — It was his proposal that the major health systems tackle the coronavirus pandemic with military precision that Dr. Alexander Garza says landed him in the role of incident commander of the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force.
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Dec. 23, 2020
St. Louis Archbishop Mitchell T. Rozanski blessed workers and expressed his gratitude to them for the care they are providing to victims of the pandemic in visits to a Mercy and an SSM Health hospital and the headquarters of Ascension.
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Medical center thrives by zeroing in on community's needs, expanding services and access
By LISA EISENHAUER
When Kirk Soileau took over as chief executive of
Natchitoches Regional Medical Center in central Louisiana in 2013, the hospital had 57,000 patient touch points a year.
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By PATRICIA CORRIGAN
Adapted from the entertainment and gaming worlds, virtual reality now has applications in health care as an alternative to pharmacological treatment. Using a headset while seated, patients can experience a walk in the woods, a swim with dolphins or a tour of Paris.
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By JULIE MINDA
The Supportive Care Coalition, an organization that promotes excellence in palliative care, became part of CHA Jan. 4.
"We will be stronger and better working together on behalf of the seriously ill and those that care for them," says Denise Hess, the coalition's executive director. She will become director of supportive care for CHA.
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Frontline clinicians and other health care staff have been under tremendous strain since the pandemic hit, and with the recent resurgence of COVID infections in many U.S. communities, the stressors are again increasing for many health care workers.
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Dr. Darold Treffert died Dec. 14 at age 87. He was an internationally acclaimed researcher in autism, hyperlexia, savant syndrome and related conditions and the inspiration behind an Agnesian HealthCare center that promotes the abilities of people who have these conditions.
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Mary Starmann-Harrison plans to retire in the second half of this year as president and chief executive of Springfield, Illinois-based Hospital Sisters Health System. She has worked in Catholic health care leadership for two decades — half that time as the top executive of HSHS, which has 15 hospitals in Illinois and Wisconsin.
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Dec. 23, 2020
Mercy Health Toledo is selling Mercy Health-Children's Hospital to Nationwide Children's Hospital, a nonprofit system that became a partner in operating the children's hospital this year. The sale is expected to be complete by Jan. 1, 2022.
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By JULIE MINDA
Dec. 17, 2020
People around the world are struggling with their mental health and well-being during the pandemic. In the U.S., adults report
"considerably elevated adverse mental health conditions" since the pandemic's onset, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Dec. 16, 2020
The 476-bed Mercy Medical Center of Canton, Ohio, will become part of the Cleveland Clinic health system under an agreement that is expected to close by Feb. 1.
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By MARY DELACH LEONARD
Dec. 11, 2020
The social isolation and disruption of everyday routines caused by the coronavirus pandemic have been especially devastating for older Americans with dementia — a reality that has received little attention, said Jan Dougherty, a nationally recognized dementia care consultant.
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By JULIE MINDA
Dec. 10, 2020
When Cory Mitchell joined Mercy Health Muskegon as director of mission integration in March, he stepped to the helm of a department that would soon face its biggest challenge ever.
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By JULIE MINDA and LISA EISENHAUER
In usual times, the annual Christmas celebration at the Bellbrook continuum of care facility in Rochester Hills, Michigan, is a grand affair. Throngs of residents and their family members stroll the decorated grounds, nosh on hors d'oeuvres and take in holiday entertainment provided by local performers.
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Intimate ukulele performances forge father-baby bonds
By NANCY FOWLER
Aaron Dohogne has fond memories of enjoying music with his dad when he was growing up in the 1990s. He recalls listening to the Beatles and Roy Orbison blasting from the radio in his father's rusty Toyota truck. Now, Dohogne and his son John also share a love of music.
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By LISA EISENHAUER
A shuttle van that provides free rides to Chelsea, Michigan, for residents of two rural communities, both without a grocery store or pharmacy, got on the road this summer courtesy of St. Joseph Mercy Chelsea.
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By KATHLEEN NELSON
Mercy Health–Oakwood Village Senior Living in Springfield, Ohio, already was pet-friendly. The addition of a dog park has made the community pet-friendlier.
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By JULIE MINDA
Dec. 2, 2020
For more than six years, New York City-based ArchCare has been working with its sponsor, the Archdiocese of New York, to identify shuttered archdiocesan properties to put to use as residential units for vulnerable populations. This year the long-term care system opened the first such renovation.
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Rising to the Call
Nov. 30, 2020
Shannon Kehrwald is seeing the devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic as an intensive care nurse at Avera McKennan Hospital and University Health Center in Sioux Falls. South Dakota has posted some of the highest rates of the coronavirus infection this fall.
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By MARY DELACH LEONARD
When Dr. Fred Rottnek rolls up his sleeves, students at the Saint Louis University School of Medicine can see their professor's commitment to social justice permanently inked onto his arms.
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By NANCY FOWLER
In 2017, Gary Brister of Chicago was newly out of jail and trying to maintain a life without the cocaine and crystal meth he'd used for nearly a decade. A patchwork of recovery and housing programs helped, but he needed a solid path back to stability.
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Catholic health facilities help bring innovative play spaces to their communities
By JULIE MINDA
Until recently, Keesha and Rich Sonnemaker had a dilemma whenever they wanted to take their four children to the park. The playgrounds that their 11-year-old and 8-year-old sons loved to visit mainly had equipment for older children.
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By JULIE MINDA
CHA has just released its revamped
Mission Leader Competency Model. The new version differentiates its guidance on the role of mission leaders by the leaders' level of experience.
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Dog's presence helps children to begin to heal, staff to obtain vital evidence
By JULIE MINDA
An unlikely hero got a lot of the credit three years ago when a pair of siblings, aged 9 and 11, gained the inner strength to face in court an abuser who had inflicted horrific harm on them.
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Systems help co-workers to process grief
By JULIE MINDA
A Friday morning in October found Stephen Kazanjian, CHRISTUS Spohn Health System vice president of mission integration, gathered with about a half dozen frontline clinicians in the intensive care unit of CHRISTUS Spohn Hospital Beeville in southern Texas, offering them spiritual support as they grieved a colleague who died of COVID-19.
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By LISA EISENHAUER
Knowing how skittish some people have been about returning to hospitals and clinics with the threat of COVID-19 lingering, the parish nursing team at Mercy Health — Lorain Hospital in Ohio decided to be deliberate in how they went about restarting a parish nursing program that had been put on hold for months because of the pandemic.
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By JULIE MINDA and LISA EISENHAUER
This spring, when a video of the homicide of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer went viral, employees of CHRISTUS Health were among the countless people who were stunned and heartbroken by what they saw.
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By LISA EISENHAUER and JULIE MINDA
Leaders within Catholic health care systems say that amid the push for racial justice in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd and for health equity as the heavy toll the pandemic has taken on Black, Hispanic and Native American communities has come into focus, their ministries have recommitted to and expanded their outreach and community programs that promote racial justice, equity and inclusion.
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Doctor's discussion was part of CHA's Joint Committee meeting
By LISA EISENHAUER
Nov. 20, 2020
Based on models of its projected spread, the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the St. Louis region will soon be comparable to being slammed by a hurricane with the strongest potential for devastation, according to Dr. Alexander Garza.
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By LISA EISENHAUER
Nov. 17, 2020
Offering hope but not certainty for success, CHA is encouraging its members to lobby lawmakers for a new COVID-19 relief package, improvements to maternal health care and for a halt in looming funding cuts to Medicare and Medicaid during the 14-day lame-duck session of Congress that began Monday.
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By RENEE STOVSKY
Erin Berquist grew up in Santa Barbara, California, spending much of her time at her grandmother's 160-acre ranch in the mountains nearby. The ranch has no electricity; her grandma, 85, an Ohlone Indian (formerly known as the Costanoans), lives by lamplight and woodburning stove. That lifestyle, and its deep connection with nature, impacted Berquist profoundly, she says.
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By LISA EISENHAUER
Providence St. Joseph Health, Ascension and Trinity Health, the three Catholic health systems that were among the first to test the concepts behind an initiative to make care for older adults more age-friendly, have since made the framework their own by adding local adaptations.
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By JULIE MINDA
Joanna Mills says she is not sure how she would have gotten through the last five months, were it not for Melanie Rae Pappalardi and the virtual bereavement support group Pappalardi runs every Thursday evening on Zoom.
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Outrage over the deaths of Black people at the hands of police officers and vigilantes spurred civil rights activism that brought protesters to the streets in hundreds of U.S. cities and towns this year.
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By LISA EISENHAUER
From the upcoming issue
After a doctor left the room at a Bon Secours Mercy Health hospital, the patient he had been tending turned to a chaplain and said: "I don't want an Arab on my care team."
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By LISA EISENHAUER
For Dr. Karen Boudreau, the most interesting finding from an analysis of COVID-19 infections that she helped conduct was how much consequence factors that many people can't change on their own have on their risk of contracting the deadly virus.
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Pandemic took heavy toll on patients in New York City eldercare facilities
By JULIE MINDA
This spring, New York City was one of the world's coronavirus hotspots — and the city's nursing homes bore the brunt of the virus' blow.
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By DALE SINGER
A lot more than lettuce seedlings are sprouting in a con-verted railroad shipping container sitting in prime parking spaces outside Saint Joseph Hospital in Denver.
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After being slowed a bit by the COVID-19 pandemic, St. Mary's Healthcare has completed its return to being an independent Catholic health care ministry under the governance of a local board of directors.
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Rising to the Call
Oct. 1, 2020
James McIntyre is a director of supply chain operations and logistics for CHRISTUS Health in Irving, Texas, where the system is based. His job is to help ensure that CHRISTUS Health's facilities across four southern states and in Mexico, Chile and Colombia have everything in stock that they need, when they need it.
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By LISA EISENHAUER
Sept. 29, 2020
One small way that Catholic health systems could potentially help address the huge issue of climate change is to reduce their own food waste, says Fr. Tom Nairn.
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By NANCY FOWLER
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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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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