Seeds of Change: The Development of a Spiritual Assessment Model

Abstract

The changing health care context is one of the most important issues facing chaplains today. Assuming that chaplains are best served by developing models out of the context in which they minister, this article gives a narrative account of the pastoral care department's methods to work creatively with the on-going course of change at High Point Regional Health System of North Carolina. A significant part of the process was the development of a psycho-social/spiritual screen which was eventually incorporated into the admission screening of all in-patients, providing for automatic referral of patients needing pastoral care assessment and intervention. Efforts to learn about the process of change as well as to make changes in our approach to pastoral care effectively created new opportunities for the integration of pastoral care into the health care system.