The Rev. Beth Newton Watson on relationship-centered care

Relationship-Centered Care in a Sanctuary of Healing

Clarian West Medical Center opened its doors to patients on December 14, 2004. At the heart of its operating principles is a commitment on the part of its board of directors, administrators, physicians, and staff to be a Sanctuary of Healing for everyone who comes through the door.

Each of us has a different experience of Sanctuary: a hall in which worship takes place, a safe relationship, a room of our own, a place out in nature. It may be the holy ground created with a burning bush or a still, small voice. We have laid Relationship-Centered Care as part of the foundation of our Sanctuary of Healing. Relationship-Centered Care contributes to rapid recovery from illness, and comforts those who will experience a different kind of healing. It focuses on what exists between people, how you and I can create a sacred space together in which both of us can experience a kind of healing.

We staff want to be healed ourselves as we work to heal others. Although we may not manage it all simultaneously, what is good for our patients is also good for us. Relationship-Centered Care is meant to help us all be good stewards of our healing energies and potential, of the gift of life. Those of us who are caring for others are not to be used up and destroyed in the process. A hospital that values healthy relationships (for ourselves, with our colleagues, and with our patients) supports the health of all who come through the door.

We discover that healthy relationships established at the administrative level positively affect decisions made at that level and elsewhere. People do not always arrive on the job with extensive knowledge about what makes a healthy relationship possible. We learn together how to build covenant work relationships, listen for essential information, reward excellence, acknowledge feelings, and confront in times of disagreement. We are co-creating a culture in which we can integrate who we are as individuals, what we believe in as caregivers and patients, and our skills as people who want to be healed and heal others. Increasingly, in that integrated space, we are discovering the soul of our hospital.

We prayed for our hospital in the early days, when we thought it needed some healing of its own. Patients, families and staff write their prayer concerns in a prayer log in the chapel, and those who come in read and pray for one another’s concerns. At a weekly healing service staff and patients name the concerns of their hearts. An interdisciplinary team meets daily to discuss how to balance the medical, emotional and spiritual needs of the patients with the standards of medical practice and the realities of the economy. We send one another on the staff letters of consolation when we hear of sadness. We have a chaplain designated for the staff. We broadcast email the compliments we receive. We begin every meeting with the remembrance of things that work right. We gather to confront one another in times of disagreement, and mediate conflict. As staff we have apologized and forgiven one another.

I have learned that the quickest way to establish Relationship-Centered Care is to be--in my behavior and in my conversation--inviting of relationship. I don’t have to be strong or perfect. I do need to “show up, pay attention, speak the truth in love, and accept the consequences.” I must choose life, my own and the life of healthy relationships with others, in order to be facilitating Relationship-Centered Care in a Sanctuary of Healing.