The deadline is nearing for pastoral and spiritual care leaders at ministries within CHA to weigh in on a proposal on standard work and staffing for pastoral care departments.
"This tool is a meaningful continuation in answer to the question of how Catholic health care can fully meet the spiritual needs of our patients and associates as we are called to do by the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services," said Carrie Meyer McGrath, CHA's director of mission services.
A subcommittee of CHA's Pastoral Care Advisory Committee spent a year studying, dialoguing and crafting the proposal, which:
- Links chaplain staffing numbers to the essential services of a pastoral care department.
- Suggests a three-tiered measure of staffing — understaffed, minimum and comprehensive — based on annual adjusted patient days.
- Offers a tool, via an online calculator, to help determine the appropriate staffing level at a facility.
The deadline to comment on the proposal is Oct. 11. Access to the proposal, online calculator and feedback survey are available through the CHA Service Center at (800) 230-7823. More information can be found at chausa.org/pastoralcare/overview by clicking on the Pastoral Care Standard Work and Staffing heading.