Documenting chaplain involvement: a pilot project exploring Pastoral Care and the integration of data science in a Central Florida Hospital

Abstract

This paper intends to outline a data integration response to the demands placed on the pastoral care department through the COVID-19 pandemic. Uniquely, these demands accelerated the need to implement documentation of care directed towards staff to complement the data derived from patient visitation. The motivation for this initiative is in part, to provide a complete picture of the care provided by hospital chaplains using an evidence-based approach through the implementation of data science.

Keywords:

• Chaplaincy
• dashboard
• data
• interventions
• staff care

Acknowledgements

The pilot project would not be possible without the contributions of so many. AdventHealth Mission and Ministry and the Center of Ministry Education and Research at AdventHealth University have been instrumental in their support. We are forever in debt to Jen Clark, Jade Hetzer and Mike Irwin, representatives of Operational & Clinical Analytics at AdventHealth, for their unending patience and tireless efforts to help educate us on the strengths and limitations of data science.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest for this work.

IRB

The project was submitted to the AdventHealth Orlando IRB and was determined a Quality Improvement project; thus, it did not merit IRB oversight. The authors utilized the Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence (Ogrinc et al., 2015) and implemented strategies to protect the chaplains and administrators who participated in this project.