Best practices in spiritual care

Bishop Anderson House collaborates with colleagues in various departments of Rush University Medical Center to advance best practices in spiritual care.  As we seek to understand and advance spiritual care in a medical world where outcomes, measurements and performance are becoming standards of care, research is becoming a necessity for chaplains.

Kenneth Pargament leads Grand Rounds

At the invitation of Bishop Anderson House and the Rush Department of Health and Religion, renowned  leader in psychology and coping, Dr. Ken Pargament, lectured at Rush University Medical Center in 2013.

Spiritual screening

The Rev. Jay Risk has worked with George Fitchett, PhD, to develop the Rush Protocol for Screening Spiritual Struggle. (Fitchett, G. and Risk, J. 2009. Screening for Spiritual Struggle. The Journal of Pastoral Care and Counseling, Vol 63, Nos. 1, 2, Spring/Summer. Pp 1-12.)  The screening instrument they developed, a simple series of questions that can be asked in a few moments, can help non-chaplains identify patients at risk for spiritual struggle which has been linked to higher mortality, poorer Activities of Daily Living and length of hospital stay. The Rush Protocol is being used and validated around the country.

Measuring outcomes of chaplain interventions

Risk also collaborated on Traumatic Brain Injury studies and SAMSHA funded interdisciplinary interventions with older adults suffering from depression.  He authored a peer reviewed case study of a patient suffering from a chronic disease in which he makes the case for measuring the outcomes of chaplain interventions based on narrative theory. (Risk, J. 2013. The Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy, vol 19, No 3, pp  81-98)   Hopefully this work will spur other publications of case studies in chaplaincy grounded in narrative theory.