Making Health Care Whole
Details and Description
Description
In the last fifteen years, the field of palliative care has experienced a surge in interest in spirituality as an important aspect of caring for seriously ill and dying patients. While spirituality has been generally recognized as an essential dimension of palliative care, uniformity of spiritual care practice has been lacking across health care settings due to factors like varying understandings and definitions of spirituality, lack of resources and practical tools, and limited professional education and training in spiritual care.
In order to address these shortcomings, more than forty spiritual and palliative care experts gathered for a national conference to discuss guidelines for incorporating spirituality into palliative care. Their consensus findings form the basis of Making Health Care Whole. This important new resource provides much-needed definitions and charts a common language for addressing spiritual care across the disciplines of medicine, nursing, social work, chaplaincy, psychology, and other groups. It presents models of spiritual care that are broad and inclusive, and provides tools for screening, assessment, care planning, and interventions. This book also advocates a team approach to spiritual care, and specifies the roles of each professional on the team.
Serving as both a scholarly review of the field as well as a practical resource with specific recommendations to improve spiritual care in clinical practice, Making Health Care Whole will benefit hospices and palliative care programs in hospitals, home care services, and long-term care services. It will also be a valuable addition to the curriculum at seminaries, schools of theology, and medical and nursing schools.
Table of Contents
List of Figures / ix
List of Tables / xi
Foreword by Rachel Naomi Remen, MD / xiii
Preface / xxi
PART 1: INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
1. Why Spirituality in Palliative Care / 3
2. Guidelines/Preferred Practices for Spiritual Care / 17
3. Spirituality: Defining the Concept / 21
4. Background: Historical Context of Spirituality in Palliative Care / 26
5. Professional Standards for Spiritual Care 33
PART 2: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPLEMENTING NCP GUIDELINES AND NQF PREFERRED PRACTICES
6. Spiritual Care Models / 55
7. Spiritual History Taking and Assessment of Patients and Families / 74
8. The Spiritual Treatment or Care Plan / 103
9. Interprofessional Considerations: Roles and Team Functioning / 140
10. Training and Certification / 155
11. Personal and Professional Development / 165
12. Quality Improvement / 178
13. Conclusion / 181
Acknowledgments / 183
Appendix A: Definitions Related to Spiritual Care / 191
Appendix B: Sample Spiritual Histories and Assessments / 198
Appendix C: Examples of Spiritual Screening Questions That Can Be Integrated into Hospital Intake Forms / 206
Appendix D: Spirituality Cases / 207
Appendix E: Professional Chaplaincy / 220
Appendix F: Listing of Research Instruments / 224
Appendix G: Listing of Curricula in Spirituality and Health / 228
Appendix H: Spirituality Centers and Other Relevant Websites / 229
References / 233
Index / 255
Endorsements and Reviews
Endorsements
This book is an important advance in understanding the relevance of spirituality in health care, particularly in palliative care. It is a lucid exposition into how we bring respect, wisdom, and compassion into caring for those who are seriously ill and those who are facing death.
We often speak of the importance of spirituality in health care. Making Health Care Whole provides the tools to turn such lip service into evidence-based practice. Offering methods and models and, above all, a deep sensitivity to the spiritual needs, issues, and strengths that arise as persons struggle with life-threatening illness, Making Health Care Whole will become the classic work on spirituality in health care—the essential resource that every health professional needs.
Making Health Care Whole is a valuable and much-needed contribution. It provides health care professionals with descriptions, standards, tools, guidelines, and wise counsel in providing appropriate spiritual care for persons with serious illness. As health care pursues genetic and molecular approaches to the understanding and treatment of illness, Making Health Care Whole testifies to the essential role of treating the spiritual needs of persons as well.
A comprehensive book that has taken center stage in the understanding of spiritual care in advanced illness. From an interdisciplinary perspective, experts have provided a working definition of spirituality that will allow clinicians and researchers alike to improve the care of seriously ill patients and their families.
Making Health Care Whole provides a thorough discussion of spirituality and the place of spiritual care in health care in general, and palliative care specifically. It includes guidelines and tools for spiritual screening, history-taking and assessment, spiritual care plans, and spiritual interventions. It offers thoughtful discussions of such important topics as the ethical issues associated with providing spiritual care, the role of each member of the health care team in spiritual care, and the importance of health professionals attending to their own spiritual life. Each chapter has a number of clinical vignettes that provide helpful illustrations of the key concepts in the text. This book is an important and comprehensive resource for health professionals from all disciplines who want to improve the quality of spiritual care for their patients and families.
Much has been written about the need to address spirituality in the care of persons to address their beliefs and values as well as their bodies. Puchalski and Ferrell provide the first comprehensive guide to understanding the importance of spirituality, religion, and culture and their impact upon one's experience and coping with illness, palliative issues, and end of life care. All disciplines—physicians, nurses, chaplains, social workers, therapists, and others—will benefit from the wealth of information and wisdom to be found in Making Health Care Whole. It provides information, models, recommendations, and practices which will enhance any professional's contribution to palliative care and any organization's goal to provide it with excellence.
Reviews
Health Progress
Making Health Care Whole is useful not only for its worthwhile content but for the resources gathered for an appendix… [MHCW] can serve as an excellent resource to help our ministries achieve the goal of consistently providing high-quality spiritual care…The authors do a thorough and sensitive job of not just presenting a lot of information, but also integrating many patient and health professional stories in every section to keep the discussion practical, relational and real.
The Midwest Book Review/ California Bookwatch
Making Health Care Whole: Integrating Spirituality into Patient Care speaks of the importance of spirituality in the health care system and provides tools for integrating spiritual concerns into the health profession. Health professionals will find this comes from a national conference discussing guidelines for clinical practices: chapters are scholarly but specific and address issues ranging from patient spiritual screening at the point of entry into the health care system to implementation models, with case histories profiling common concerns.
International Transplant Nurses Society (ITNS)--Vol. 1, No. 1
This 266-page book is rich with content to direct the professional practice of the transplant nurse. The FICA Spiritual History tool is an excellent resource for guiding our conversations with patients and family members. Other tools for spiritual assessment are included for the reader’s review. The book also includes many other resources including centers for spirituality and pertinent websites. This is a great book to share with other members of your transplant team including your chaplains and social workers. Start the New Year with focusing on a new aspect of your nursing practice: integrating spirituality into your patient care.
CHOICE
Based on a two-year national process to develop consensus on best practices, this book is a clear statement of values integral to palliative and patient-centered health care as well as a guide for incorporating them into teaching and clinical settings. . . . Their [Puchalski and Ferrell] book treats spirituality as a measurable set of human interests and concerns that are not simply indentified with religious affiliation or identify. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers. —G. R. Thursby
IAHPC Newsletter
[T]his book was a pleasure to read—the flow of information is well-ordered and the delivery smooth.
Because spiritual care means so many different things to different people, this book is an important step in unifying our ideas and standardising (and, hopefully, improving) our practices. I certainly think it has a place on the bookshelf in any hospice or palliative care service, where it will allow experienced personnel to assess their service's spiritual care program and will provide the novice with a succinct overview of what spiritual care is all about. &mdashRoger Woodruff
Amazon.com (online review)
Making Health Care Whole is an excellent resource for clinicians working with patients dealing with serious illness and end of life decisions. As a healthcare provider with over thirty-five years experience predominately in the intensive care unit, I recommend this book as a useful tool. —Denise Baird Schwartz