Catholic Health World - June 15, 2021

Colorado competitors unite 2 Executive changes 7 PERIODICAL RATE PUBLICATION

JUNE 15, 2021 VOLUME 37, NUMBER 10

Health systems get creative to overcome vaccine barriers Dignity Health grant

Teresa Crawford/Associated Press

By LISA EISENHAUER

Herman Simmons, left, makes a vaccination appointment for Theopulis Polk at a Chicago laundromat in March. Simmons is a community educator for Saint Anthony Hospital. In a race to boost COVID-19 vaccination rates, the hospital is among many working to overcome mistrust and improve access.

When data showed that vaccine rates were low in a neighborhood of mostly Black residents compared to the rest of the mostly white St. Louis suburb of Kirkwood, the Communities Disparities Council of Mercy zeroed in on those residents.

Its members worked with the leaders of the neighborhood group to distribute information on the vaccines’ safety and efficacy. Then they set up a block of time on two Saturdays at a Mercy clinic in Kirkwood to give vaccines exclusively to residents of the neighborhood. Along with shots, the 50-odd people who came in for vaccines got free T-shirts.

Mercy’s Communities Disparities Council focuses on practical solutions to get people vaccinated.

“Our goal is not to boil the ocean,” says Danielle McPherson, the council’s

addresses mental distress among minority youth in Southern California A top goal is to stem distress related to cultural trauma

Continued on 3

Ministry recruits from outside health care to spark innovation

By JULIE MINDA

Aaron Martin was satisfied with the success he was enjoying, the team he was leading and the career goals he was accomplishing as director of Kindle and Print on Demand for Amazon. So, when an executive recruiter called him with an “out of left field” invitation to meet with top Martin executives of Providence St. Joseph Health about a job opportunity, Martin said: “I’m already working at one of the best companies in the world. Why would I want to leave?”

The recruiter piqued his curiosity by telling Martin how the health system’s leaders were taking chances on big new ideas, so Martin agreed to meet with Providence President and Chief Executive Dr. Rod Hochman and Providence President of Operations and Strategy Mike Butler. He says they won him over with their vision for Continued on 4

Abu Iqbal, a high schooler in Southern California, created a podcast on suicide prevention after he took a training on the subject offered

by Dignity Health – California Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles. To listen, go to namioc.org/ podcast-episodes.

By JULIE MINDA

As president and chief executive of PeaceHealth, Liz Dunne uses skills she honed as an Air Force officer including the ability to quickly assemble high-performing teams to address complex situations. Dunne, in the foreground, joins staff at a PeaceHealth vaccination clinic held in December for emergency medical services workers in the Vancouver, Washington, area.

In a podcast posted by the Orange County, California, chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, high school senior Abu Iqbal describes going through dark periods when he felt his life was meaningless. His relationships suffered. His grades fell. He thought about suicide.

He says in the Feb. 15 podcast, created for the “It’s Okay to Feel” NAMI podcast series, that he’s emerged from that dangerous period and wants to share his path, especially the importance of reaching out for help.

He got crisis counseling through the 741741 mental health texting service and Continued on 6

Documentary captures trauma, resilience of COVID caregivers

By LISA EISENHAUER

In one scene in the documentary “Behind the Mask: Stories of the COVID19 Pandemic,” a nurse at SSM Health DePaul Hospital in suburban St. Louis talks about the toll that caring for patients with the virus has taken on her and her colleagues.

Her comments come between shots of her in head-to-toe protective garb tending to a patient on a ventilator whose bed is surrounded by electronic monitors and pouches and tubes for intravenous medications.

The nurse, Courtney Aholt, says caring for COVID patients has led to posttraumatic stress disorder and panic attacks. “I’ve had to seek help for it

because of the trauma that we on the front lines have gone through,” she says. “It’s not only terrifying for these family members and the patients themselves, but for the nurses as well.”

SSM Health produced “Behind the Mask” to honor the pandemic experiences of frontline staff like Aholt. It was released in May during Health Care Week.

Bryan Stevens, a senior editor and producer with SSM Health, directed the film.

Stevens said his directive from system executives was to capture the experience of caregivers, patients and families impacted

by COVID. “What we didn’t want to make was an SSM Health advertorial,” Stevens said. “We wanted it to be watchable by all doctors, Continued on 6

Dr. Stephen Taylor, a critical care physician at SSM Health St. Mary's Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin, stands at the bedside of a patient with COVID-19 who is under his care during a scene from the documentary “Behind the Mask: Stories of the COVID-19 Pandemic.” SSM Health made the movie to honor frontline staff, patients and their families.

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CATHOLIC HEALTH WORLD June 15, 2021

Brought together by pandemic, Colorado physician leaders hope to stay united

By LISA EISENHAUER

Two doctors who are part of a group of medical leaders in Colorado that has been jointly confronting the COVID-19 pandemic are hopeful the collaboration among competitors will continue long after the virus is vanquished.

Dr. J.P. Valin, chief clinical officer for SCL Health, and Dr. Shauna Gulley, senior vice president and chief clinical officer at Centura Health, started meeting every weekday by teleconference with their counterparts from five Valin other large health systems in March 2020, as the pandemic was beginning to rage. A representative from the Colorado Hospital Association joined them.

“We collectively de– cided that the COVID-19 Gulley pandemic response was bigger than any one physician, or any one hospital or any one health system and it was going to take us all moving in concert to get the best possible patient care and the best possible outcomes for the state of Colorado,” Gulley says.

Over the last year, the physician leaders have pooled data on topics like infection rates, patient admissions and staffing. They have hashed out and jointly set policies on masking, visitation and staff redeployment. They have established processes to share resources like personal protective equipment and testing capabilities.

The group touted their efforts in a commentary titled “Physician Executives Guide a Successful Covid-19 Response in Colorado” that was published online by NEJM Catalyst last fall. The partnership, the doctors wrote, “ultimately allowed our state to rapidly de-escalate the rates of

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Dr. J.P. Valin, center, chief clinical officer for SCL Health, tours the site of a mass COVID-19 vaccination event in Denver with Lydia Jumonville, the system’s president and chief executive, and Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock. Five thousand people got their shots during the event.

infection, hospitalization, and mortality due to COVID-19.”

Responding to a clinical crisis Valin says the impetus for the group came from chief executives of the health care systems, which also included Banner Health, Boulder Community Health, Denver Health, UC Health and HCA Healthcare/Health ONE. The executives saw the medical leaders as having the best skills to get the systems through a looming clinical crisis that initially there were no therapeutics or interventions to address, he says.

In their commentary, the physician leaders defined their collective goal as “to identify issues, share best practices, align on difficult decisions, and provide guidance” on how to tackle the unprecedented challenges posed by the pandemic.

Valin says having the health systems aligned in their policies made working together simpler since they were all going by the same playbook. Their alignment also reassured staff and the public because health care leaders weren’t sending out mixed signals on practices such as masking and social distancing.

Through their collaboration, Valin says the hospital systems put the best interest of all Coloradans ahead of their own self-interests.

He says, for example, that early on the systems with their own COVID testing capabilities had a clear advantage over those relying on outside labs that could take days to return results. The physician leaders in the group agreed that the inhouse testing capabilities would be used to test the sickest of patients, regardless of where they were being treated, to determine whether they had the virus. “Those systems could have used their testing capabilities to get a competitive edge,” Valin notes.

Improved outcomes In addition to working together on behalf of their systems, the physician leaders collaborated with state officials leading the emergency pandemic response. They relayed concerns from frontline health workers and advised on public policy decisions, such as guidelines for reopening public places and allocation of scarce medical resources.

The physician leaders came from a range of specialties including emergency medicine, anesthesiology, family, internal and hospital medicine, infectious diseases, and pediatrics. This gave the overall group a broader perspective on the challenges COVID care presented, Valin says.

He says some of the doctors in the collaboration were participating in the day-to-day care of COVID patients and witnessing the toll that effort was taking on frontline staff.

The health systems the physicians represented cared for 98% of patients hospitalized with COVID complications in the state from March to July 2020. In their commentary, the doctors credit their collaborative efforts for clinical outcomes that were better than the national average, including lower overall mortality rates, lower average lengths of stay, and fewer patients requiring mechanical ventilation.

Gulley says that though the commentary focused on the group’s efforts early in the pandemic, the collaboration has continued to serve the systems well. She cites as one of its top achievements setting up a statewide transfer center that kept track of open beds across all the systems so staff at an overwhelmed hospital would know where they could send patients. She adds the process “worked seamlessly” when COVID cases surged later in the year.

The health systems’ collaboration has made vaccine distribution much smoother, Gulley says. The physician leaders worked together to get frontline workers inoculated and to set up clinics to give shots to the public.

Next challenge While they are still videoconferencing on their COVID response twice a week, the physician leaders are starting to look at what issues their collaboration can confront beyond the pandemic. Valin sees health equity issues as one area where their joint efforts could be well used. Gulley is hopeful that the group can come up with ways to deal with the fatigue and burnout among health workers caused by the crisis.

“This collaboration won’t go away once the pandemic is over,” Gulley says. “We will try to continue to tackle hard things together knowing that our collective voice and our collective learnings are stronger than that of any one health system alone.” leisenhauer@chausa.org

Upcoming Events from The Catholic Health Association We Are Called – Confronting Racism to Achieve Health Equity Conversation Series III

Webinar: Advanced Issues in Sponsorship – Session Five: Initial and Ongoing Formation of Sponsors

We Are Called – Confronting Racism to Achieve Health Equity Conversation Series IV

Human Trafficking Networking Zoom Call

Deans of Catholic Colleges of Nursing Networking Zoom Calll

Webinar: Advanced Issues in Sponsorship – Session Six: Ministry Identity and Sponsor Assessment

June 30 | Noon – 12:30 p.m. ET

July 13 | Noon ET

July 14 | 2 - 3:30 p.m. ET

July 20 | Noon – 1 p.m. ET

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A Passionate Voice for Compassionate Care®

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June 15, 2021 CATHOLIC HEALTH WORLD

Reaching vaccine holdouts From page 1

diversity officer. “Our goal is to make sure we can get the people who are most in need vaccinated and eradicate this virus as much as possible.”

Catholic health systems have joined the nationwide effort to figure out how to get COVID-19 vaccinations to remote or underserved populations and how to persuade skeptics to roll up their sleeves.

The broader effort includes enticements, like a chance to enter lotteries for $1 million prizes in Ohio and Colorado, giveaways like free donuts, and mass vaccination events. As Catholic Health World went to press, Vice President Kamala Harris was preparing to tour southern and Midwestern states to encourage vaccinations.

For health systems, vaccine outreach efforts include education campaigns using traditional and new media and vaccine clinics in medically underserved communities.

Trinity Health’s campaign called “It Starts Here” encourages vaccination among people of color. Black and brown influencers with large followings in 14 underserved communities across the country educate, raise awareness and promote availability of the vaccines in the campaign. The campaign includes $1.1 million in community health grant funding to support local outreach and engagement.

Easing immigrants’ access In Lewiston, Maine, St. Mary’s Health System has worked with the New Mainers Public Health Initiative to get the immigrant community vaccinated.

Abdulkerim Said, the nonprofit initiative’s founder and executive director, says his group and others that serve the mostly African Muslim migrants first had to overcome a stigma attached to COVID-19 to coax residents to get tested and, if needed, treated for the virus. To encourage vaccination, the New Mainers have had to counter disinformation on social media about the safety of the shots as well as overcome language and transportation issues.

St. Mary’s, part of Covenant Health, has helped by providing science-based data and resources. That information has been shared through a variety of means, including text message blasts and social media posts on WhatsApp and TikTok.

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Through its affiliate Comhospitals and pharmacies to reach munity Clinical Services, a remote areas and is offering shots federally qualified health cenwithout appointments at some sites. ter, St. Mary’s offers vaccines Basel says the system at first hoped to at a site within walking dishave vaccine access available within tance for immigrants who live 50 miles for most residents. By midin downtown Lewiston.

May, the system estimated that it and The health center also others who were part of the vaccine has helped facilitate vaccine effort had established access points events specifically for the within 25 miles of almost everyone in immigrant community, such the rural state. as two that Said’s organization The effort got a boost in May when set up at local mosques. Said the Food and Drug Administration and the mosque leaders got announced that the Pfizer-BioNTech their shots at the events and vaccine could be kept at refrigerashared photos of themselves tor temperatures for 30 days, instead being inoculated on social of at constant subzero temperatures media.

Workers wait at a registration table at a COVID-19 vaccines event set that required special freezers. As of By late May, Said says 45% up by the New Mainers Public Health Initiative in Lewiston, Maine. The early June, the Pfizer vaccine was the of those 50 and over in the nonprofit serves migrants, most of them African Muslims. It is teaming only one approved for children 12 and immigrant community had up with health agencies on vaccination campaigns. One of the workolder. been vaccinated. Now he ers holds a cutout of the face of Dr. Nirav D. Shah, director of the Maine “That’s a game changer for us,” and other community lead- Center for Disease Control and Prevention. He is well known in the state Basel says of the FDA announcement ers are focusing on getting the for directing efforts to end the pandemic. on safe storage temperatures. “Now younger crowd in the mix. we have a lot more ability to get the One strategy they have employed is to “A lot of these communities, if they still Pfizer vaccine into rural communities.” offer gift cards to entice some local soccer have a low vaccination rate, that means stars to get vaccinated and to share posts there’s a lot of dry grass still sitting there Pilot program about it for their social media followers. waiting for that next round to come through PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center “We are using the youth to educate the and it only takes a spark in that community in Vancouver, Washington, has hosted vacyouth,” he says. to send it up into a prairie fire,” he says. cine clinics specifically directed at populations that have obstacles or have shown Providing reliable information Making vaccination ‘fun’ reluctance to get vaccinated, says Randy Stephen M. Costello, executive director Basel says Avera has given its care pro- Querin, a senior communications specialist. for philanthropy for St. Mary’s Health Sys- viders training on how to educate patients In early March, a clinic at PeaceHealth tem, says as the vaccine rollout expands, about the vaccine without expressing judg- Southwest Urgent Care in Vancouver inochesitancy seems to be a bigger barrier than ment about their choices. The system has ulated more than 500 Black, Latino and access. St. Mary’s is debunking disinforma- also encouraged providers and patients Pacific Islander community members, in tion about vaccine safety in various lan- to post on their personal social media partnership with community organizations. guages on social media and sharing infor- accounts about getting their shots in hopes In northwest Washington state, Peacemation about vaccine clinics, including that they will serve as peer influencers.

Health organized language-specific vacthose run by others.

The system even has a lengthy post on cine clinics for Punjabi- and Hindi-speaking “If people are making the decision to not its website with advice on how to make the patients and the Latino community. get the vaccine based upon incorrect infor- vaccination process “fun.” Among the tips In Oregon, PeaceHealth is partnering mation, then we feel that it’s our job to make are that patients reward themselves with to offer mobile COVID-19 testing and vacsure that information is corrected and out a shopping trip or special meal afterward cination clinics for vulnerable populations, there in a format they can understand and or that they use the process as a chance to including the Mam-speaking indigenous use to make an informed decision,” he says. practice meditation or mindful breathing.

Guatemalan community in Cottage Grove.

Dr. David Basel is vice president of cliniIn addition to vaccine education and The system also is expanding outreach cal quality for Avera Medical Group, part of advice, Avera is continually expanding vac- to Slavic communities in collaboration with Avera Health, based in Sioux Falls, South cine access, Basel says. In three of the four cultural experts, public health departments Dakota. He says that among the reasons he states where Avera operates, vaccine dis- from six counties and eight health systems hears from rural residents for not getting tribution is being handled by public agen- in Oregon and Washington, Querin says. Its shots is that they don’t think the virus will cies. But in its largest market, South Dakota, vaccine education campaign for this comreach their communities. When he gets that the state contracted with health systems to munity includes the use of various media argument during his outreach efforts, he provide the shots. to share interviews with trusted community counters it with a prairie fire analogy.

Avera has used its existing network of members and Russian-speaking clinicians answering questions about the vaccines.

In Longview, Washington, PeaceHealth Medical Group is piloting a program in which primary care physicians ask hesitant munity organizations patients if they would like information about to send workers door the vaccine, and then take time to explain to door in some areas the benefits of vaccination. If the patient to bring vaccines to makes the decision to get vaccinated, the residents who can’t leave their homes to get to the primary care physician handles the injechospital or the pop-up tion during the visit. clinics.

“Based on early results we believe this Sifuentes says in addiwill be our model going forward,” Querin tion to access challenges, says.

S

aint Anthony Hospital has taken to the streets to fulfill its mission of getting the community it serves on the west and southwest sides of Chicago vaccinated against COVID-19.

The effort began in February for the independent safety-net hospital that provides care for several low-income neighborhoods with a high concentration of Black, Hispanic and Asian residents plus many people without legal immigration status.

The hospital hired, trained and fields a crew of 80 community educators to laundromats, churches, stores and other places to talk to residents about the importance of getting vaccinated and answer their questions. If the residents are willing to get a shot, the educators immediately phone a call center to set up an appointment. The call center also is staffed by people hired from the community.

When residents arrive at Saint Anthony for their appointments, they are met by patient navigators — again, community residents — who welcome them, register them, escort them to vaccination nurses and then lead them to the chapel for their post-vaccination observation period.

An analysis by the Chicago Tribune found that through April 14, 54% of the vaccines given by Saint Anthony had gone to people residing in high-risk ZIP codes. For some other vaccine providers, that number was as low as 8.4%.

Jim Sifuentes, the hospital’s senior

Teresa Crawford/Associated Press

Chicago hospital brings the community into its vaccine outreach

Saint Anthony has had to confront distrust of the medical community by residents, especially those who are African American. The hospital is working with community groups and churches to Alberto Raygoza, left, talks with Saint Anthony Hospital outreach educate residents and worker Patricia Palato at a Chicago grocery store in February. She answer their questions. approached Raygoza as he shopped for produce and made a vaccinaSifuentes says the grassroots approach to tion appointment for him. reaching the community vice president for mission speaks to how well Saint Anthony knows and community developits service area and residents’ needs. A ment, says Saint Anthony’s Sunday vaccination event in early May at outreach takes away much a clinic in a mini-mall in a Latino neighof the complexity that can borhood drew more than 200 teenagdiscourage people from ers. The event was promoted on social getting vaccinated. media and featured a deejay.

As the vaccine rollout “This didn’t just happen,” Sifuentes expands, Saint Anthony is says of the hospital’s vaccine effort. “It’s doing even more to assure Sifuentes our approach to community engagethat those in its service ment to begin with. In order to have area are inoculated. The hospital has begun really successful outcomes in any capacto offer pop-up clinics at familiar places ity you have to be in the community.” where people feel welcome such as schools.

— LISA EISENHAUER In late May it started partnering with com-

‘Doing the right thing’ McPherson of Mercy helped that system plan its first mobile vaccine clinic in Missouri in Riverview Gardens, a school district in St. Louis County with a large low-income and minority population. She expects others to follow.

Meanwhile, the system is adding to and updating a series of short videos posted on YouTube that feature clinicians, many of them people of color and some speaking in Spanish, answering questions about the vaccines that have been posed by patients.

By mid-May the videos had gotten 143,000 views on Facebook alone; of those, 96,000 were from viewers who don’t follow Mercy.

McPherson, whose full-time job is director of managed care contracting and payor relations, says Mercy’s outreach efforts likely will continue as long as there are still people who are reluctant or unable to get vaccines.

“I feel like our North Star is really doing the right thing,” she says. “We know that this is the right thing to do.” leisenhauer@chausa.org

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CATHOLIC HEALTH WORLD June 15, 2021

Outside influences

which “puts people first, then technology — rather than the other way around.” That ethos “matches very well with the Catholic health care approach of putting the person first.”

Conrado played an essential role amid the pandemic in improving Ascension’s digital operations so that it is easier for patients to connect virtually with Ascension facilities, including for appointment scheduling, mobile registration and telehealth. He also led the rapid process to transition Ascension associates who could work remotely, from office to home workspaces.

From page 1

transforming health care delivery. Martin joined Providence in January 2014 as executive vice president, chief digital officer. He heads a unit driving digital innovation across Providence, and shares responsibility for the system’s digital health, mobile health, wearables and telemedicine strategy and marketing.

Martin is among a breed of ministry executive recruited from leadership in companies outside of health care to bring fresh thinking and meaningful change to an industry perceived in the past as slow to change.

Receptivity Ed Fry is president and chief executive of FaithSearch Partners and co-founder of its affiliate HealthSearch Partners — both executive search firms count some of the ministry’s largest systems among their clients. Fry says health care systems including those in the ministry have been Fry open to recruiting from outside the field for a few decades, with this receptivity increasing as health care systems have gotten larger and more complex, and as they have come to corporatize their back-office work.

Health care systems’ interest in outside talent is strong in such nonclinical functional areas as human resources, marketing and information technology, he says.

Candidate interest in mission-based organizations is higher than in the past, Fry notes. Says Martin: “Rod and Mike hooked me, but the mission kept me. It is rewarding to work at Providence, because I can really contribute directly to helping patients and frontline caregivers.”

Superpowers Martin says some of the leadership and efficiency skills he acquired at Amazon have been very valuable in his work at Providence. For example, rather than shackle teams with behemoth, multiyear projects, he promotes agility by having teams concentrate on manageably sized projects that can evolve quickly with incremental, iterative changes.

He recruited people with complementary “superpowers” to his leadership team — an approach championed by a mentor at Amazon. One executive he recruited from Amazon excels in understanding consumer experience, a recruit from T Mobile is a branding expert, and a recruit from Microsoft has a breadth of technology expertise, and so on.

Martin says his own leadership skills have been enhanced by the strong servant leaders who surround him at Providence.

Powered by mission Greg Till, Providence chief people officer, says that within the last decade or so, health systems have become nimbler and more open to new ideas, and that has made them more attractive workplaces for entrepreneurial people who may not have direct experience in health care.

Till Till, who came to Providence from the defense industry, says most new hires do not arrive with a baseline understanding of the system’s mission, vision and values. That is where formation comes in. He notes that the digital innovation group that Martin heads prioritizes formation and has its own dedicated mission leader — Sr. Susanne Hartung, SP.

Aaron Martin, Providence St. Joseph Health executive vice president, chief digital officer, leads a virtual team meeting.

Protect and defend PeaceHealth President and Chief Executive Liz Dunne served for 10 years in the U.S. Air Force on active duty and 10 years in the Air Force Reserve, retiring as a lieutenant colonel. While in the reserve and prior to joining PeaceHealth in 2015, she’d been a leader in three California health care organizations — Providence Health & Services’ South Bay region, City of Hope in Duarte, and Memorial Health Services in Fountain Valley.

She says both in health care and in the military, “it’s about Dunne working as a team to protect and defend those who may not be able to protect and defend themselves. It’s about committing to a mission — to something bigger than yourself.”

Dunne says that some of the characteristics and skills she honed in the Air Force and reserve have proven to be of great value at PeaceHealth, including the discipline and rigor, the anticipation and planning of scenarios and forward-thinking strategies and the ability to quickly assemble high-performing teams to address complex situations.

The military has a very proactive culture, and “I try to bring this approach to health care — anticipating where technology will take us … how consumer beliefs about value will change over time” and how patient needs related to social determinants of health may evolve as the culture and behaviors of community members shift, Dunne says.

She notes that capabilities built during her military service also have proven essential as she has led PeaceHealth in responding to the pandemic and in confronting social injustice, including racial inequality.

PeaceHealth is among the ministry systems and facilities that have committed to fighting systemic racism through meaningful and impactful action. “What we’re doing at PeaceHealth is not for the faint of heart,” Dunne says. “Our Catholic heritage and values have never felt more relevant or necessary.”

‘People first, then technology’ Eduardo Conrado came to Ascension from Motorola Solutions, where he had stints in marketing, information technology, strategy and innovation, with much of that time in the executive suite.

Conrado, who is executive vice presiConrado dent — chief strategy and innovation officer for Ascension, says his experience at the telecommunications

Social gratification Having worked in data analytics for Bank of America, Citigroup, CIGNA and S&P over two decades, Don Gray says he was ready “for something more socially gratifying than financial services” when he interviewed at Mercy of Chesterfield, Missouri, late last year for the position of chief enterprise data and analytics officer. Mercy was looking Gray for someone to lead its ambitious data analytics agenda when it brought him on in January and began his ongoing formation.

Gray explains that Mercy’s care model is dependent upon the ability to deliver “proactive, predictive, personalized care.”

Eduardo Conrado, right, executive vice president – chief strategy and innovation officer for Ascension, chats with colleagues at a gathering prior to the pandemic.

company has translated well as he leads the development of Ascension’s digital and data strategy, including the platforms for consumer engagement and care delivery operations and product innovation. He’s also responsible for Ascension’s corporate strategy on digital operations and for its new business development functions.

He’s among those leading efforts to apply technology to enable better experiences for patients and clinicians.

He says at Motorola there was an em– phasis on an “empathetic design approach,”

Greg Till, center, chief people officer for Providence St. Joseph Health, shares a laugh with colleagues.

Mike Moreland, left, is chief human resources officer of acute care for Providence, and Keegan Fisher, right, is chief human resources officer of Swedish, a Providence affiliate. The three are at a human resources team gathering prior to the pandemic.

He says achieving this vision involves creating “an agile and robust enterprise data architecture and analytics infrastructure to harness the full potential” to understand patients’ perspectives and needs based on “integrated, actionable, real-time insight” gleaned from patient data.

Gray is bringing his skills in enterprise risk management, information technology strategy, data warehousing, project management and data management to bear on this Mercy effort to harness the power of health care data to improve patient care and patient experience.

Fresh eyes Julie Washington cut her marketing chops at international consumer products companies before joining Trinity Health in January 2020 as chief marketing and communications officer and chief customer experience officer. Her power resume Washington spanned 30 years and included posts as chief marketing officer for Champion Petfoods, where she expanded global and e-commerce distribution and led the company’s brand campaigns. She was chief marketing and innovation officer for Jamba Juice and a marketing leader at Procter & Gamble, Luxottica Retail and

June 15, 2021 CATHOLIC HEALTH WORLD

Julie Washington, fourth from left, joins with other Jamba Juice executives and employees after the company rang the opening bell of the NASDAQ exchange in August 2011. She’d worked in consumer marketing for several international companies before joining Trinity Health last year as chief marketing and communications officer and chief customer experience officer.

Nestle Purina.

She says with “fresh eyes” she can see beyond “how it has always been done” in health care. Consumerism is a driving force in health care now, she says, and providers that do not excel in understanding patient perspectives and delivering a good patient experience will become obsolete.

Washington loves researching people’s wants and needs and using consumer data to build the ideal experience. She says Trinity Health is redoubling efforts to build positive relationships that earn patient loyalty for the long-term. Her consumer marketing background is proving useful in guiding Trinity Health in this area.

32,000 steps While John “JT” Timmerman had worked at the Cleveland Clinic toward the start of his career, he’d leapfrogged across a few other fields before landing at Mercy St. Louis Hospital three years ago. He’d worked in a variety of operations and quality management roles including at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, Marriott International

hotels and at the Gallup polling company.

He’d served as a judge for the esteemed Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

A commonality at all those employers was a focus on intimately understanding people’s perceptions, wants and needs in order to perfect their experience at an organization.

This expertise in consumer behavior has served Timmerman well as vice president of operations at Mercy St. Louis.

Timmerman says he’d learned at the Ritz to walk onto a property and quickly assess staff training in hospitality: How are people treating visitors? Do they look Timmerman them in the eye? Do they smile? He says when he interviewed at Mercy St. Louis, he noted the courteous staff and attention to design elements that made patients feel welcome and reassured that this was a place of healing. The fact that culture and mission aligned convinced him to accept the position.

He takes a page from the Malcolm Baldrige award approach to achieving exceptional management by meeting individually with 100 randomly chosen employees annually to gather their perspectives of Mercy and of their respective roles in the hospital. And, he walks the entire campus at least three times each day, interacting with staff and patients to get a firsthand feel for how smoothly things are running. He regularly logs 32,000 daily steps. jminda@chausa.org

NEW

Sponsor Resource A VALUABLE GUIDE John “JT” Timmerman checks out Mercy St. Louis Hospital’s “Market Express” 24-hour self-service market, which opened in early April. Timmerman is vice president of operations at the hospital. He previously was in the hospitality industry.

about the distinctive role of sponsors for the health ministry of the Catholic Church.

Trinity Health acquires majority stake in Premier urgent care company Trinity Health of Livonia, Michigan, has acquired a majority stake in the urgent care manager Premier Health of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Under the arrangement, Premier Health will manage about 20 Trinity Health urgent care facilities, with those facilities remaining under the ownership of Trinity Health.

With that addition, Premier Health will manage more than 70 urgent care clinics across nine states including a Trinity Health of New England urgent care location. Over the next few years, Premier Health plans to double the number of urgent care centers it operates.

Baton Rouge-based Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System founded Premier Health as a privately held, forprofit in 1999. FMOLHS is the second largest investor in Premier Health, after Trinity Health.

Premier Health has partnered with multiple health systems on equity-based and management joint ventures having to do with operating urgent care locations.

Among its Catholic health partners are

Ascension, FMOLHS’s Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center, FMOLHS’s Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, FMOLHS’s St. Francis Medical Center, Seton Medical Center Harker Heights and St. Joseph’s Candler. The partners own the locations, and Premier Health operates them under these partners’ brand names.

Premier Health also has equity investments in the facilities it operates under the joint venture agreements. Trinity Health said the deal with Premier Health will not alter any of these preexisting partnerships.

Trinity Health said it will add Trinity Health-branded urgent care locations in conjunction with Premier Health, but it has not yet set a number.

According to a Trinity Health press release, under the arrangement urgent care services will be more convenient and accessible and will be better coordinated with other levels of care across the continuum.

Trinity Health said the improvements will come in part through efforts to make the connections between urgent care, primary care and other services more seamless.

5

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6

CATHOLIC HEALTH WORLD June 15, 2021

SSM Health documentary From page 1

all nurses. These just happen to be at SSM facilities, where we had access. We were hoping to make it more universal, so nurses and doctors can see themselves in these people.”

He and the film crew spent about six weeks filming in Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Missouri. The locations include hospitals, an assisted living center, private homes and a supply distribution hub. The 37-minute movie was culled from 53 hours of footage.

In addition to doctors and nurses, the movie focuses on patients, family members, an environmental services worker and a supply chain staffer.

Stevens said the first interview the crew did was with a patient named Marland Koomsa at SSM Health St. Anthony Hospital in Oklahoma City. Koomsa is on oxygen but is sitting up and animated as he talks about his bout with COVID. He says the virus hasn’t caused him any pain but has left him struggling to breathe.

“I’ve never been afraid of too much but, boy, this has terrorized my head,” he says.

A day after that interview, Koomsa’s condition worsened and he was moved to intensive care. Seventeen days later he died.

Mental health distress From page 1

tapped into other free resources for guidance on how to approach his mental health and develop coping strategies. He opened up about his struggle to loved ones. He participates in a support group. He’s also embracing a new purpose — to help others. He devotes much of his podcast to explaining how people can spot mental health distress and signs of suicidality in others, and how they can assist the sufferers.

Iqbal gained the skills and knowledge to educate others through his participation in a virtual mental health training program called QPR, or “Question. Persuade.

Refer.” A coalition that includes Dignity Health’s six Southern California hospitals, the UniHealth Foundation and Southern California school districts and mental health service providers is enabling thousands of community members to take part in QPR and similar training to promote mental health awareness and positive early intervention.

Youth of color are a particular focus of the effort. Evidence shows they are at heightened risk of mental health concerns, in part because of the impact of cultural trauma.

Stress-related illness Carly Goldblatt, who manages youth mental health programming for Dignity Health – California Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles, says “mental health Goldblatt training and education are needed now more than ever,” given that stress related to pandemic impacts and racial tensions over the past year have overlayed preexisting traumas for many vulnerable people and populations.

In a press release on the Los Angelesarea coalition’s work, Dr. Lynn Yonekura, director of community health for Dignity Health — California Hospital Medical Center, says issues including poverty, racism, adverse childhood experiences and violence can have a profound effect upon physical and mental health and wellbeing for minority community members.

“We know that trauma and mental health issues can contribute to stress-related illnesses, such as mood and anxiety disorders, substance use disorders and suicide,” she says.

She adds that linking youth to mental health resources is one way the coalition

Residents of Villa Loretto, an assisted living facility in Mount Calvary, Wisconsin, greet a llama in a scene from “Behind the Mask: Stories of the COVID-19 Pandemic.” The facility, part of SSM Health-Agnesian HealthCare, was locked down during most of the COVID-19 pandemic. The visit with animals from its farm was one of the first activities at the center once pandemic restrictions began to ease.

He was 56.

The news of Koomsa’s death hit Stevens and his crew hard, even though they had only talked with him briefly. It gave them a feel for the devastating losses that frontline workers have been experiencing for months. The emotions around those losses are so raw that Stevens has been told by some caregivers that they couldn’t watch the film.

Despite the tragedies they have gone through and their compassionate response, Stevens said the workers he interviewed shrugged off being called heroes. After seeing what those care providers are enduring in COVID wards, he found the term appropriate. “I just think heroes are people that do this work every day and they just keep coming back,” he said.

SSM Health is working on a longer ver-

is helping schools to decrease the suicide rate. Improving access to mental health support has been shown to reduce disciplinary referrals and absenteeism and increases on-time graduation.

tal Health First Aid, Youth Mental Health First Aid and QPR — are rooted in the concept that even people with no expertise in mental health can learn how to identify the signs of mental health distress, engage the person who is suffering and refer that person to experts and/or organizations that can assist. This can include therapists and social workers at the 11 grantee organizations, suicide hotlines, crisis text lines and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. According to the American Psychological Association, approaches including providing individual therapy, family support and school-based services can be effective in addressing mental health disorders in children.

Multiplier effect The coalition’s programming is funded by a $4 million, three-year grant that began in November 2019. The nonprofit UniHealth Foundation is providing $1.9 million and Dignity Health, part of CommonSpirit Health, the remainder. The initiative is called “The Cultural Trauma and Mental Health Resiliency Project.”

Eleven mental health and social service organizations in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties are using the grant dollars to provide trainings in Mental Health First Aid, Youth Mental Health First Aid and QPR. Mental Health First Aid and QPR are established training programs that have been offered in communities nationwide. QPR got started around 1999, Mental Health First Aid has been offered in the U.S. since 2008, and Youth Mental Heath First Aid since 2012.

The training from the Southern California coalition began with in-person coursework then switched to virtual presentations with the onset of the pandemic.

The instructor training is primarily for staff of the six hospitals in the Dignity Health Southern California Service Area as well as for staff at grantee organizations.

In 2020, 191 people received instructor training, and they in turn provided training in Mental Health First Aid, Youth Mental Health First Aid or QPR to 3,137 community members.

Those trained so far include nonprofit staff, teachers, coaches, parents, mentors and students who interact regularly with minority youth in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties. All the trainings are offered at no cost to participants. Many of the newly minted instructors are locals who are of the same ethnic or racial background as the participants who take part in their trainings on Mental Health First Aid, Youth Mental Health First Aid and/or QPR. Goldblatt notes that for the purposes of the grant work, the coalition does not have a hard and fast definition of “cultural trauma,” but the group is “more so recognizing and addressing racial, ethnic and cultural needs of individuals, while also addressing” trauma associated with adverse childhood experiences, violence, poverty, racism and similar stressors. Suicidality and substance abuse are covered in all three courses.

All three training modules — the Men-

Worsening stressors Saraijah Barnes is a mental health instructor with the San Bernardinobased Making Hope Happen Foundation, one of the nonprofits involved in the coalition. She’s been Barnes trained as an instructor in both Mental Health First Aid models and in the QPR model and has presented curriculum from these three models to upwards of 750 community members. She says, “I am Black, and I know that the issue of mental health most definitely touches upon my community.”

She says the mental health issues that had loomed large before the pandemic in Black and brown communities have been amplified over the past year. The San Bernardino community that her foundation serves has been hit hard by pandemic impacts. “It’s all correlated — there’s the distress connected with losing jobs and

sion of “Behind the Mask” that it is considering for film festivals and possible TV distribution. The current version is posted on YouTube and SSM Health is sharing the link on other social media.

Stevens said he tried to be mindful of not making the film too gloomy, despite its heavy subject matter. In addition to scenes inside COVID units, there are scenes at the home of an SSM Health pediatrician who is recovering after a near-fatal bout with the virus. He is in tears as he talks about the support he’s gotten in his recovery from his family and colleagues.

Another scene features a recovered patient returning to a hospital to thank the caregivers who saved her. During the joyous reunion, one of the caregivers tells her: “You gave me as much as I gave you, that’s for sure.”

The movie ends with scenes of workers removing their masks as an original song pays tribute to the resilience of COVID care providers. “We Rise” was written by two SSM Health staffers — John Nguyen, chief marketing officer, and Brad Hood, executive assistant, SSM Health St. Clare Hospital – Fenton, Missouri.

After the credits roll, a final message appears on the screen. It says: “Please vaccinate.”

homes (as lockdowns hamper local economies) and the distress of losing family members and community members (to COVID-19). This is traumatic, and we note that this has emotional, mental and psychological impacts,” including on young people.

According to the coalition, calls to mental health crisis lines in Southern California have increased by up to 8,000% since March 2020.

Reducing stigma Goldblatt says it’s important to have this training rolling out among community members because traditionally there has been much stigma around mental health issues in minority communities.

She hopes the training will decrease the level of stigma and negative effects of trauma.

Iqbal, the high schooler who created the podcast after attending the training, says many in the Muslim community are reluctant to talk about mental health as well. Unspoken and open hostility and violence toward Muslims have made Iqbal hypervigilant in public places, stoking anxiety. Also, as a Muslim of Pakistani descent, he says he labored under cultural expectations for academic excellence that caused performance anxiety at school.

He took the mental health training course after a classmate in his Southern California high school died by suicide.

That death made it clear to him that other people were silently suffering, and it compelled him to learn more about his mental health challenges, and how to seek help and aid others in doing so. jminda@chausa.org

Pediatrician academy warns of threats to minority youths’ mental health I

n March, in its AAP News, the American Academy of Pediatricians said the pandemic has put youth at increased risk of emotional and behavioral health concerns and it advised parents and guardians “to be aware of loneliness, isolation and uncertainty in children and identify emotional and behavioral responses and needs in the context of typical development.”

The AAP says the pandemic has exacerbated existing disparities among children and families with emotional and health challenges and that “appropriate allocation of resources is necessary to address the pandemic’s impacts, particularly for underresourced communities, populations facing inequities, children and youths with special health care needs and children in child welfare and juvenile justice systems.

“The impact of racism, including structural racism on the emotional and economic well-being of families of color cannot be overstated,” according to the organization’s guidance.

— JULIE MINDA

June 15, 2021 CATHOLIC HEALTH WORLD

CHRISTUS takes majority stake in Central Louisiana Surgical Hospital

KEEPING UP

Geisert

Isacksen

PRESIDENT/CEO LaNell Scott to president of CHRISTUS Spohn Hospital Corpus Christi – South in Corpus Christi, Texas. She was interim president.

ADMINISTRATIVE CHANGES Trinity Health of Livonia, Michigan, has made these changes: Dawn Geisert to senior vice president and chief integrity and compliance officer; Daniel P. Isacksen Jr. to executive vice president and chief financial officer.

Laura Campbell to senior vice president for people development for Benedictine of Minneapolis.

Organizations within Bon Secours Mercy Health made these changes: Rick Goins to

7

Campbell

Okuno-Jones

chief operating officer of Mercy Health — Lourdes Hospital of Paducah, Kentucky. Ian Smith to chief operating officer of Mercy Health Physicians – Kentucky, which is affiliated with Lourdes Hospital.

Becky Rios to chief financial officer of CHRISTUS Spohn Health System of Corpus Christi, Texas.

Susan Okuno-Jones to chief nursing officer for AMITA Health Alexian Brothers Medical Center Elk Grove Village in Illinois.

David Stewart to chief operating officer of Cleveland Clinic Mercy Hospital of Canton, Ohio.

Ronelle Sellers to market director of marketing and communications for CHI Memorial of Chattanooga, Tennessee, part of CommonSpirit Health.

Stewart

Wiltgen

Tyler Wiltgen to executive director of the St. Vincent Healthcare Foundation, part of SCL Health - St. Vincent Healthcare of Billings, Montana.

GIFT Mercy Medical Center Foundation of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has received a $1 million gift from Bruce and Judy McGrath of Cedar Rapids for the development of the Dorothy McGrath Neighborhood at HallMar Village.

The neighborhood, which will be named in honor and memory of Bruce’s mother, will be the skilled nursing unit of HallMar Village.

Mercy is developing the HallMar Village senior living community in northeast Cedar Rapids in partnership with Presbyterian Homes & Services.

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CHRISTUS Health has finalized a joint venture with Alexandria, Louisiana-based Central Louisiana Surgical Hospital to take a majority stake in the facility.

The facility now is called CHRISTUS Central Louisiana Surgical Hospital. The organizations are not disclosing financial terms of the agreement.

The organizations said in a press release that the partnership will improve their network of care in Central Louisiana.

The surgical hospital, which opened 11 years ago, offers procedures in ear, nose and throat; gastroenterology; general surgery; gynecology; neurosurgery; ophthalmology; oral surgery; orthopedics; pain management; plastic surgery; podiatry; and urology. The facility has an inpatient unit. It has 75 physicians and 270 staff.

In Alexandria, CHRISTUS operates a network of facilities including CHRISTUS St. Frances Cabrini Hospital, a 241-bed campus with 1,600 associates and a medical staff of over 325 physicians.

8

CATHOLIC HEALTH WORLD June 15, 2021

App relates local Black history as it gets Eugene moving

PeaceHealth Oregon and Eugene’s marathon presenter promote racial justice and physical fitness

By JULIE MINDA

W

hen organizers and the lead sponsor had to cancel the annual Eugene, Oregon, marathon last year because of the threat of COVID-19 spread, they found a way to keep people moving.

PeaceHealth teamed with Eugene Marathon organizers to create Strides for Social Justice, a free app available from Google Play or the Apple App Store.

Users get access to tours of Black history sites in Eugene and suggestions for exercise interludes.

Walkers, runners, bikers and skaters can navigate from landmark to landmark in a neighborhood, reading about local history at the stops. The routes are wheelchair accessible.

In brief videos included in every tour route, Denise Thomas, a local fitness entrepreneur and Black business owner, demonstrates exercises people can follow along with. Each of the Black history routes also include reflections.

The Skinner Butte route includes a walk along the path that of a Ku Klux Klan parade in 1924.

The southside tour focuses on the city’s first documented Black resident, Wiley Griffon, who lived from 1867 to 1913. He was a driver for the community’s first streetcar service. When the streetcars shut down, he got a job as a janitor at the University of Oregon.

He was the university’s first Black employee.

The Westmoreland Park neighborhood tour includes stops related to the lives of educator, musician and community activist Dr. Edwin Coleman Jr. and track star and Olympic gold medalist Margaret Johnson Bailes.

The downtown Eugene route runs through the location of Lane County’s first Black community.

The westside tour stops at places of significance to Sam and Mattie Reynolds, who arrived in Eugene in 1942 as part of the Great Migration of Blacks from the South. According to information from The Register-Guard news-

The Mims historic house is one of the stops on a tour on the Strides for Social Justice app. C.B. and Annie Mims, who were Black, came to Eugene in the mid-1940s.

Though they were not allowed to purchase land on their own, they were able to purchase this property with the help of a sympathetic employer.

A screenshot from the mobile app for the Strides for Social Justice program shows Wiley Griffon, one of Eugene, Oregon’s first Black residents. He was a driver for the city’s first streetcar system, which was a mule-powered trolley car.

paper, Sam Reynolds was a president of the local chapter of the Congress of Racial Equity, which sought to end housing and job discrimination against people of color, and Mattie Reynolds organized youth to participate in civil rights marches.

At Sam Reynolds Station, a bus station near to where the Reynol-

des lived, app users will find an outdoor plaque that describes some of the disparities and housing discrimination that the couple endured. White landlords refused to rent to them, so they set down roots along with several other African-American families in an area called Ferry Street Community and raised their family in a

house without power or running water.

The plaque says the couple taught their children dignity, respect and generosity. The family “fostered a strong and caring community,” the marker says.

The app quotes Eugene City Councilor Greg Evans, who was a friend of the Reynoldes, as saying that Sam Reynolds paved the way for other Black people to be able to join the Eugene community.

The tour route continues to St. Mark’s Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, which the Reynoldes helped to establish. It is Eugene’s oldest black congregation. App users also visit Mattie Reynolds Park.

The audio tour concludes with a reflection from Yvette Alex-Assensoh, vice president for equity and inclusion at the University of Oregon. She challenges listeners to consider whether they are acting in love, hate or indifference when it comes to social justice issues.

Marcy Marshall is senior director of marketing and communications for PeaceHealth’s Oregon network.

She brought the Marshall the concept for Strides for Social Justice to life in partnership with her network

chief executive at the time, Mary Kingston, who has since retired.

Marshall directs the committee of 16 community leaders who built out the idea. She says the impetus for the app was “discussions of the death of George Floyd, which was like the shot heard around the world. It shook the nation.”

PeaceHealth and Eugene Marathon staff wanted to make a meaningful statement about Black achievement and experience in Eugene and do so in a way that would promote physical activity.

DeLeesa Meashintubby is a member of the Strides for Social Justice steering committee; chair of Springfield, Oregon-based PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center’s Community Health Board; and executive director of the Volunteers in Medicine organization. As a Black Meashintubby woman, she says she was previously unaware of much of the history she’s learned through her involvement with the project. She is enthusiastic about the prospect of Oregonians — particularly young people — learning about the important legacy of people of color in the Eugene area.

Becky Radliff, director of event operations for the Eugene Marathon, worked closely with the Oregon Black Pioneers historical society and other experts to develop and curate app content. Radliff says the app could evolve to include routes that highlight various racial and ethnic groups that are part of the fabric of Eugene.

“I think our hope is that Strides for Social Justice will foster learning and a greater understanding of our history, including some parts of our history that have not always been highlighted in our community,” Radliff says. “We’re recognizing the milestones and accomplishments of people of color but also looking at the more complicated parts of our history,” such as the parts that have to do with injustices done to people of color.

Information about and a link to the app are at stridesforsocial justice.org. jminda@chausa.org

One of the tours on the app takes participants through a community where Sam Reynolds and his family lived beginning in 1942. Despite enduring discrimination, the family made Eugene their home and paved the way for other Black families to migrate to the area, according to a Eugene city councilor.