Session: Developing Culturally-Sensitive Approaches to Patient Care
Meeting the religious and spiritual needs of minority faith patients in Catholic hospitals: a pilot project
Saturday, October 14, 2023
9:00 AM – 10:15 AM ET
Location: Kent A-C (Fourth Floor)
In 2022, a multistate Catholic healthcare system endorsed a Mission-driven quality improvement project to improve culturally concordant care for patients from minority faith traditions. The project was spurred by the need for healthcare providers in an area serving many observant Jewish patients to better understand religious beliefs and values that guide medical decision-making, particularly at the end of life. To align care with Jewish patients’ religious and spiritual needs and preferences, a workgroup of chaplains, intensivists, rabbis, an ethicist, and an ICU nurse developed an intake questionnaire to inquire proactively about communication, dietary, and modesty preferences, and religious rituals relevant to the inpatient experience. Based on system-wide demographics, the questions were then refined to apply to Muslim, Hindu, and Jehovah’s Witness patients as well, with input from spiritual care, advocacy, compliance, legal, and resource management. A clinical informatics team integrated the questions into the electronic medical record (EMR) systems to ensure appropriate flow of information to the relevant service lines. As of March 2023, the initiative is being piloted in one state, with plans to expand. Qualitative outcome measures, recorded using a 5-point Likert scale, include whether being asked these questions on admission helps align care with religious beliefs and preferences, makes patients/family members feel respected, influences trust in the care provided, improves comfort in the hospital, and increases the likelihood of recommending the hospital to others in their religious community. Active efforts to educate providers about the religious beliefs/frameworks guiding decision-making in minority faith groups are planned.