This is a presentation I delivered to healthcare staff at Alegent Health a few years ago. Alegent Health is a large regional healthcare system based in Omaha, NE and affiliated with CHI. The primary message here is that all staff that interact with patients can impact a patient's spiritual care.

1. Being Present
A Workshop for Nurses and other
Healthcare Professionals on Providing
Excellent Spiritual Care
Presented by Rev. Joel High M.Div, BCC
Chaplain Coordinator / Mission Representative
Alegent Health Lakeside Hospital

2. Objectives
At the completion of the workshop
participants will be able to:
• Discuss the difference between religious
and spiritual care.
• Identify ways they can or do provide
spiritual care to patients and family
members
• Explain how being present is spiritual care.

3. Being Present
Alegent Health Mission
Faithful to the healing ministry of Jesus Christ, our Mission is to
provide high quality care for the body, mind and spirit of every
person. Our commitment to healing calls us to:
create caring and compassionate environments
respect the dignity of every person
care for the resources entrusted to us as responsible stewards
collaborate with others to improve the health of our communities
attend especially to the needs of those who are poor and
disadvantaged
act with integrity in all endeavors
To achieve this Mission, we pledge to be creative, visionary leaders
committed to holistic healthcare in the region.

4. Being Present
“For I was hungry and you gave me
something to eat, I was thirsty and you
gave me something to drink, I was a
stranger and you invited me in, I needed
clothes and you clothed me, I was sick
and you looked after me, I was in prison
and you came to visit me.”
-- Gospel of Matthew 25: 35-36

5. Religion and Spirituality
• There are differences between religion
and spirituality.
• Religion usually refers to an organized set
of beliefs by a group of people who see
themselves as different from others.
• Spirituality deals with individuals beliefs
and practices and attempts to relate to a
God, the universe, others or one’s self.

6. Religion and Spirituality
Spirit is a natural dimension
of every person.
-- from Professional Chaplaincy:
Its Role and Importance in Healthcare

7. Religion and Spirituality
Spirituality…describes an awareness of
the relationships with all creation, an
appreciation of presence and purpose that
includes a sense of meaning.
-- from Professional Chaplaincy:
Its Role and Importance in Healthcare

8. Religion and Spirituality
Religion focuses on defined
structures, rituals, and doctrines.
-- from Professional Chaplaincy:
Its Role and Importance in Healthcare

9. Religion and Spirituality
My working assumption:
Everything we do/are is spiritual in
nature because human beings are
spiritual beings.

10. Spiritual Care
We speak of spiritual care as if it were a special endeavor, relegated
to the clergy, therein missing the truth that spirit pervades all we are
and do.
Every interaction has the potential to negatively or positively affect
the spirit.
We have only begun to recognize the power of our actions in the
lives of the people we care for.
So, too, the people we care for have a remarkable ability to affect
the lives of carers – who find themselves changed by the very act of
care giving.
When we allow ourselves and those we care for to touch and
enhance each other’s spirits our care will have become truly
spiritual.
-- C. Dick-Muehlke (adapted)

11. Spiritual Needs
• What are spiritual needs?
• Spiritual needs can be simple or complex
• Some needs that anyone could and should
meet include: loneliness or isolation, fear,
anxiety, sadness
• Some spiritual needs that need to be
addressed by a chaplain or religious
leader include: fear of dying, questions
about the afterlife, a need for reconciliation

12. Being Present
We convince by our presence.
-- Walt Whitman

13. Being Present
• Ministry of Presence
• Taking the time to be with a patient and/or
family member can really help to allay
fears, reduce anxiety, and build trust.
• Being Present is simple and is spiritual
care that anyone can do.

14. Being Present
• Martin Buber, I and Thou (1923)
• Defined to ways of relating
• I-It – Subject-Object; what can I get from
you
• I-Thou – Subject-Subject; unity in being
• Being Present means seeing the other as
Thou rather than It and affirming their
worth and wholeness

15. Being Present
All of you. All of me.
Body
Mind
Spirit

16. Being Present
The 3 S’s
• Show Up
• Shush
• Stay Put

17. Being Present
What you do
• By caring for a person’s body we care for their
spirit
• Provide information and hospitality to patients,
family members and visitors
• Notice spiritual needs and make referral to the
chaplain
• Allow the patient to tell their story

18. Being Present
What you can do
• Be present with the patient
• Listen attentively and sensitively acknowledge
their experiences
• Ask gentle questions
• Let them tell their story
• Reassure and support the patient and family
• Pray with the patient (Be careful!)
• Offer/provide compassionate touch
• Refer high spiritual needs/distress to chaplain

19. Spiritual Screening Questions
Addressing the Spiritual Needs of all Patients:
Nursing & Pastoral Services Working Together
• A Team of Chaplains from across the system have worked with the
Center for Nursing Excellence to strengthen this process.
• This team has improved upon the Nursing Screening Question
which currently triggers a referral for pastoral services to conduct a
more in-depth spiritual assessment.
• This work has resulted in the practice of asking three simple
“intentional spiritual screening questions” during the nursing
assessment.

20. Spiritual Screening Questions
“Caring for the Body, Mind and Spirit of Every Person.”
By asking these questions:
• we are providing spiritual care.
• patients are informed of our commitment to care for the
spiritual dimension of every person.
• patients are reminded that we value their spiritual
resources during their quest for healing.

21. Spiritual Screening Questions
The Three Questions:
1. Have you experienced any changes or losses
in your life recently?
2. Is religion or spirituality important to you during
this hospital stay?
3. Do you have a source of spiritual support?

22. Comfort Touch
• Planetree recommends that Patient-
centered organizations offer patients and
staff the opportunity to receive “caring
touch.”
• A group of staff at LKS have recently
created a Comfort Touch Work Team to
provide Comfort Touch gentle massage to
patients and to support team members in
offering comfort touch to patients

23. Being Present
Questions?

24. Being Present
“We can live without religion
and meditation, but we cannot survive
without human affection.”
Dalai Lama