Carol Keehan, DC, president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association gave the keynote address Oct. 26 at the College of St. Catherine's first National Healthcare Summit. Photo by Jeff Barak.

Henrietta Schmoll School of Health summit features national Catholic healthcare leaders

By Amy Gage
Nov. 6, 2008

On a blustery Sunday in late October, Sister Carol Keehan, DC, opened the College of St. Catherine's first National Healthcare Summit with a message of hope, chilled by the cold realities of the nation's healthcare system.

Forty-seven million U.S. residents are without health insurance, Keehan told the 100-plus Catholic educators and Catholic healthcare providers gathered for the three-day summit, Oct. 26-28. Only 7 percent of Americans feel confident that they can continue to afford and access healthcare, she added, and 18,000 "unnecessary deaths" occur in this country each year because people can't access healthcare in a timely fashion.

"This is a time for big solutions, because our country needs big solutions," she said.

Dubbed "Catholic Partnerships for Workforce and Leadership Development," the summit brought together leaders from the nation's Catholic colleges, universities and healthcare systems to forge new partnerships that address critical workforce and leadership development needs in Catholic healthcare today.

The event was supported by a grant from the John and Susan Morrison Family Foundation.

"The Catholic Church has an unparalleled history in both healthcare and education," Keehan said, and the summit was "a very important and historic gathering. It's no small feat to get this kind of conversation going."

Breakout sessions during the summit focused on workplace needs, meeting the needs of the aging population and those who are underserved, and using educational innovations to affect primary care, among other topics.

Keehan enumerated the Catholic values that, she acknowledged, "are shared by others" but nevertheless are the backbone of the Catholic faith. Among them are:

Dignity of the person. This "cornerstone value," said Keehan, has allowed Catholics to reach out both to those "who are easy to love" — including children, the unborn and people with handicaps — and to treat compassionately the elderly, the mentally ill, street people and those who live in a vegetative state.

The common good. Looking beyond individual needs to what will benefit the greater population "is an integral part of Catholic teaching," Keehan explained, "and has motivated the development of many of the works in healthcare and healthcare education."

Valuing the whole person. In recognizing that human beings are both physical and spiritual, Catholic education serves as "more than simply work preparation," said Keehan. "We [also] understood the importance of education to contribute to the work of the Creator."

She asked whether Catholic healthcare and Catholic education, once closely tied to one another, might consider a partnership anew. "There is a huge need in our country today for healthcare and healthcare education based on these same noble core values," Keehan said.

She cited concerns about quality of patient care, but also about the overburdened lives of healthcare practitioners: physicians who leave their medical residences hugely in debt, forced to pay more attention to medical reimbursement issues than to patients themselves, nurses so buried under "the avalanche of paperwork" that they don't have "time to be kind, to teach, to support."


Breakout sessions:

Workforce Needs and Educational Capacity: Mary Wakefield, Ph.D., RN, FAAN, associate dean for rural health, School of Medicine and Health Science, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks.

Healthcare Systems Perspective:Debra A. Canales, chief human resource officer and executive vice president of organization and talent effectiveness, Trinity Health System, Novi, Mich.

Healthcare Education Perspective: Mary K. Walker, Ph.D. RN FAAN and dean, Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing, Loyola University, Chicago.

Opportunities for Advocacy Collaboration: Colleen Scanlon, RN, JD, senior vice president, Catholic Health Initiatives, Denver, and MaryAnn Brenden, MSW, National Board of NETWORK, a Catholic Social Justice Lobby and associate professor of Social work at the College of St. Catherine.

Meeting the Needs of Our Aging and Underserved Populations While Developing Workforce Capacity: Dan Gannon, JD, president and CEO, Catholic Senior Services. Archdioceses of St. Paul/Minneapolis; Mary Broderick, Ph.D., RN, President and CEO, Catholic Eldercare, Minneapolis; Valinda Pearson, PH.D., RN, program director and professor of nursing, College of St. Catherine; and Mary Madonna Ashton CSJ, MSW, MHA, St. Mary's Clinics, Minneapolis/St. Paul and former Minnesota Commissioner of Health.

Developing Cultural Capacity to Meet the Needs of Diverse Patient and Student Populations: Chrishonda Smith, MBA, CCDP, Office of Diversity and Inclusion, Trinity Health System; Roseanne Cook, CSJ, MD, Grace Busse Rural Clinic, Pine Apple, Ala.; Rene Padilla, Ph.D., OTR, FAOTA, associate dean for academic & student affairs, Creighton University, Omaha, Neb.

Collaborative and Action Research: Charlotte B Royeen, Ph.D., OTR, FAOTA, dean of health sciences, St. Louis University, St. Louis, Mo., and Teresa Cochran, Ph.D., RPT, School of Pharmacy and Health Professions, Creighton University.

Healthcare Policy for the Future: Former U.S. Sen. David Durenberger, senior fellow and chair, National Institute for Health Policy, University of St. Thomas Opus School of Business, Minneapolis.

Innovations in Technology and Digital Learning: Marty Witrak, Ph.D., RN, dean, School of Nursing, College of St. Scholastica, Duluth; Charlotte Weaver Ph.D., RN, chief nursing officer, Gentiva Health Services/Cerner Corp., Atlanta, Ga.; and Shirley Eichenwald Maki, MBA, RHIA, FAHIMA, assistant professor and HIM/ATHENS project director, College of St. Scholastica.

Catholic Identity in Healthcare and Higher Education: Amata Miller, IHM, Ph.D., professor of economics and director, Myser Initiative on Catholic Identity, College of St. Catherine, and Anita Ho, Ph.D., bioethicist and consultant/educator, Providence Health Care, Vancouver, Canada.

Challenges & Solutions to Recruitment, Development and Retention of Healthcare Professionals: Joanne Warner, DNP, RN, dean and professor, University of Portland School of Nursing; Patricia Schoon, MPH, RN, associate professor and FACES Project coordinator, College of St. Catherine; Heather Froelich, RN, MSN, learning and development specialist, St. Francis Center for Learning, Shakopee, Minn.; and Cheryl Olson, MS, RN, NEA, BC, assistant professor of nursing, community partnerships & clinical resource development, College of St. Catherine.

Likely Futures for Primary Care: Preparing for and Creating Change Through Educational Innovation: Mary Jane England, MD, president, Regis College, Boston; Lois Lenarz, MD, board of directors, St. Mary's Clinics, senior vice president/chief clinical officer, Fairview University Medical Center, Minneapolis; and Larry Green, MD, senior scholar in residence, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and professor, family medicine, University of Colorado at Denver.

Transformational Leadership for Healthcare: Challenges for Systems and Educational Institutions: Herbert Vallier, senior vice president for human resources, Catholic Health Initiatives, Denver, and Andrea J. Lee, IHM, Ph.D., president, College of St. Catherine

About the Henrietta Schmoll School of Health
The College of St. Catherine launched its Henrietta Schmoll School of Health in September 2007 to integrate its academic programs in healthcare and develop new programs, as well as to create more partnerships with healthcare organizations and community-based clinics.

With the aim of creating strategies that transform healthcare education as the needs of health and healthcare evolve, the School of Health currently enrolls more than 2,000 students and employs more than 200 faculty members in its 22 healthcare programs.

For more stories, visit the Henrietta Schmoll School of Health Spotlight on the News and Events website.

Contact Amy Gage, (651) 690-6829

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