Chicago’s Saint Anthony nurtures connections with Chinatown

By JULIE MINDA

There is a growing population of Chinese immigrants on Chicago’s south side, and many of them have been disconnected from the health system. Saint Anthony Hospital, a ministry facility that serves the south and west sides of Chicago, has been working to close that divide.

At a session that was part of CHA’s virtual Catholic Health Assembly, Saint Anthony’s Genessa Schultz-Brown and Xiao Jessica Fan explained that by being intentional about establishing a presence in Chicago’s Chinatown, learning about community members’ needs and developing programming to meet those needs, the hospital has built trust with many Chinese Americans there. This has helped to improve the immigrants’ access to care. Schultz-Brown is the hospital’s senior director of community development and Fan is community outreach manager.

Fan said Saint Anthony was the first hospital in the area to invest heavily in such programming, and many community members now “speak very highly of our work” and feel comfortable accessing services at Saint Anthony.

Unique challenge

According to the Chicago Chinatown Community Foundation, Chinatown was established in its current location in 1912 and has over 20,000 Chinese residents. That foundation says the area is a popular tourist destination with over 150 restaurants, gift

Listening to Our Voices

From page 1 Hudson said that while the videos showcase the diversity of the system’s workforce, they also are a reminder of what unites the staff. “When you have those moments in your work where you have an opportunity just to be really centered on who your colleagues are and the common mission that you share with them, it is a beautiful experience,” Hudson said.

St. Luke’s is promoting and sharing the videos on LinkedIn, Facebook and other social media.

Hudson noted that St. Luke’s footprint covers about 22,000 square miles in a part

Vision statement

From page 1 had become clear about a year ago as CHA’s governing board and leadership team were preparing to launch the planning process for the association’s next strategic plan, that it was necessary to put forth a vision for where CHA is heading, before a plan could be developed.

She said given the immeasurable change brought about by the global pandemic and other drivers, CHA is in a “time of transformation,” and setting a vision for the future was necessary. So, last fall, CHA’s board appointed a Vision Committee that has worked with consulting agency Tenfold Health over the ensuing nine months.

The committee and agency solicited the input of hundreds of CHA stakeholders, engaging them in discernment and discussion about the vision. That engagement involved surveys, interviews, focus groups and other discussions with CHA board members, board alumni, women religious, member sponsors, ministry executives, association executives and external partners and experts, among others. Based on shops and grocery stores.

Fan explained that Chicago’s Chinatown is a rather insulated community. Many residents, especially senior adults, speak Mandarin or Cantonese Chinese, and almost no English. Many community members are unfamiliar with the U.S. health care system, added Fan. It is entirely different from that of their native China. Such community of Texas that is rich in cultural diversity. The system’s workforce and volunteers number 21,000.

She said an objective of the campaign is to “build trust and transparency” in St. Luke’s. To that end, she said, the videos reflect candid and unscripted comments made by workers to a series of questions. Though the videos are edited, she said the viewpoints shared are authentic.

“We did not even provide employees with the questions in advance of the interviews,” she said. “We gave them some sense of the project and told them we just want to hear their stories. We want to hear how their personal and professional stories intersect.”

One purpose

One of the first videos released features Enrique Contreras y Martinez, director of mission at St. Luke’s Health — The Wood- their learnings, the committee and agency crafted the statement and checked that it resonated with members of the ministry.

CHA’s board approved the statement just prior to the assembly.

Call to action

Just after his installation at the assembly as 2023-2024 CHA board chair, Damond Boatwright issued a call to action to the ministry “to unite around our new vision statement.”

Boatwright, president and chief executive officer of Hospital Sisters Health System, told assembly attendees, “We have a higher mission in Catholic health care.” He explained that what sets the ministry’s mission apart from that of other providers is its belief that each person has intrinsic dignity and its commitment to addressing the needs of the vulnerable.

Partnered for change

Joining Sr. Mary and Boatwright on the Vision Committee that shepherded the creation of the statement were CHA 20222023 board chair Laura Kaiser; and CHA board members Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer, Dougal Hewitt, Fahad Tahir and Tina dynamics make it a “unique challenge” to reach Chinatown residents, said Fan. She noted that these residents are an underserved population, one central to Saint Anthony’s mission to serve.

To improve access to this group, Saint Anthony’s community development team has been replicating and expanding upon an approach it has used before with other immigrant groups. It has been partnering with civic organizations to build inroads into the Chinese-American community, learning about the population and their health and social service needs, and establishing a presence in Chinatown, such as at festivals and other public events.

Cultural competency

Saint Anthony has been using the knowledge it has gained to establish its programming around improving health care access. The hospital has hired care navigators and other community development team members who are fluent in the Chinese dialects spoken in Chinatown. Those staff members now proactively connect with community members and help them understand and navigate accessing services at Saint Anthony.

Fan said because of such efforts, Saint Anthony was able to tailor a COVID-19 vaccination program for Chinese-American Chicagoans that drew in numerous community members for inoculation.

Beginning with that vaccination effort, the community development team has helped Saint Anthony to increase its hiring of people of Chinese heritage.

The team also has ensured that health care information and signage at Saint Anthony is in Chinese as well as English.

The team also is conducting cultural competency training — it hosts brown bag lunches and will use this platform to share with staff information about Chinese culture, health care beliefs common among Chinese Americans and barriers to their health care access.

Service expansion

Fan provides free health care screenings and basic information about health care access and social services during her threetimes-a-week visits to Chinatown.

Schultz-Brown said Saint Anthony is expanding access greatly — it plans to open a clinic in Chinatown next year that will offer culturally competent care, including rehabilitation, primary care and access to social service navigation.

She said in its efforts Saint Anthony is immersing itself in the Chinese-American community and this is inviting them in to receive the care and services they need.

jminda@chausa.org lands Hospital and a native of Mexico. He talks about the language and cultural challenges he had to overcome to get an education.

“As a leader, I tell people ‘You can do this. It might not look like you can right now, but you will,’” he said in the video.

Martinez said one of the reasons he has stayed with St. Luke’s is “because of the respect that we have for others.” He said the system and its parent value the backgrounds and experiences of its workers and how the individual gifts of each enhance the whole.

“Not until we all become one can we be a transformative presence,” Martinez said. “I think CommonSpirit really encompasses this prayer of Christ himself that all will be one for one purpose.” leisenhauer@chausa.org

Weatherwax-Grant. Kaiser is president and chief executive officer of SSM Health; Bentzen-Mercer is executive vice president and chief administrative officer of Mercy; Hewitt is executive vice president/chief mission and sponsorship officer of Providence St. Joseph Health; Tahir is senior vice president, Ascension, and ministry market executive, Ascension Saint Thomas, part of Ascension Tennessee; and WeatherwaxGrant is senior vice president, public policy and advocacy for Trinity Health.

During the assembly, committee members shared insights on the vision statement’s meaning. Bentzen-Mercer explained that the use of the word “we” reflects the collaborative nature of the work that is ahead. Not just ministry organizations but also partners outside of Catholic health care will be instrumental in the work, she said.

Weatherwax-Grant focused on the words “bold change” in her reflection. She said the committee envisioned radical, transformational changes to systems, including the U.S. care, payment and delivery systems.

Leading indicator

Hewitt spoke of how the reference in the new vision statement to “human flourishing” called to mind how the founders of ministry systems and facilities responded to the needs of their times in line with their commitment to ensuring that people could flourish more abundantly.

Kaiser elaborated that human flourishing is related to people’s ability to reach their full potential. “This is what we mean when we talk about health equity. It is the idea that all people have an equal opportunity to achieve their God-given purpose,” she said.

Kaiser added: “Through our shared Catholic ministry, we are in the business of advancing human flourishing.” jminda@chausa.org

Tahir said that as the committee had been deliberating during the development of the new statement, members reflected on past ministry milestones, such as CHA’s leadership in advocating passage of the Affordable Care Act.

He said that looking at the history of CHA shows “we lead — we are the leading indicator of where health care ought to go in our country.” The vision statement, he said, will help point the way to that future.