How to Manage a Non Profit Health Care Organization

Non-Profit Healthcare Organization-A Comprehensive Study
Introduction
Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) is a non-profit organization that consists of four separate national Catholic health systems that were combined under CHI over the past three decades. CHI offers assisted living services, nursing home services, memory care, rehabilitation care, hospital care, adult day care services and many other health care services around the nation. One example is the Madonna Manor in Northern Kentucky, which was founded by the Benedictine Sisters in the 1960s, then operated by the Sisters of St. Francis as a subsidiary of CHI in 1998. CHI clearly identifies itself as a non-profit organization on its main website (CHI, 2019) and its mission, vision and values align with the standard idea of what a non-profit should be. This paper will describe the history, leadership and mission, vision and values of the organization to show how it is consistent with non-profit healthcare.
Mission and Vision
One of the main aspects of non-profit nursing homes and health care organizations is that they tend to be more proactive about putting people before profits. In other words, profits are not their primary aim. Their primary aim is to serve the needs of others—and in doing so, by engaging in servant leadership within the community, they develop a reputation for providing genuine, authentic care for people. As a result, they earn the esteem of the community, obtain benefactors and donors to assist with the maintenance of operations, and are sustained through the fees charged for providing care to patients and residents in their homes and beds. As Span (2012) points out, “for years, researchers have reported that ownership status is one of the factors related to quality care. ‘Most studies show that nonprofits do a better job of caring for patients,’ said JiSun Choi, a postdoctoral fellow in nursing and long-term care at the University of Kansas Medical Center School of Nursing.” The reason for this is that non-profits have a mission and vision that is rooted in servant leadership.
Catholic Health Initiatives has a mission, vision and values statement that aligns with the same servant leadership orientation principles that apply to the standard non-profit formula among health care organizations. The mission of CHI is “to nurture the healing ministry of the Church, supported by education and research. Fidelity to the Gospel urges us to emphasize human dignity and social justice as we create healthier communities” (Our Mission, 2019). The mission is rooted in the Christian teachings of the Gospel, which are in and of themselves the essence of servant leadership. Christ is often identified as the original servant leader (Sendjaya & Sarros, 2002). The goal of CHI is also described in the mission statement—to bring greater justice to the community by serving the needs of the members of the community in a Christian spirit. Many non-profits take a religious orientation in their service provisions and CHI is no different.
Its vision is to “lead the transformation of health care to achieve optimal health and well-being for the individuals and communities we serve, especially those that are poor and vulnerable” (Our Mision, 2019). Through the mission described above, CHI focuses on transforming the way in which health care is delivered to the “poor and vulnerable”—i.e., the marginalized and underserved, which includes the elderly population. By focusing especially on this population, CHI is able to provide a unique vision in the health care landscape.
The core values of CHI are especially important to the organization, which notes that the values statement was created with the assistance of all 700 employees of CHI, who voiced their perspective on the values that should matter most. These values include reverence for God’s creation so as to have a quality relationship with those under CHI’s care; integrity founded on morality, fidelity and trust; compassion so as to be able to put oneself into the shoes of one’s patient; and excellence so that the highest level of quality care can be provided (Our Mission, 2019). These values align with the typical values that one would expect to find in a non-profit health care organization as they emphasize on providing support, assistance and quality care to the patient above all else by adhering to the principles of a doctrine that has stood the test of time. Thus, these elements of the organization are consistent with non-profit healthcare
History of CHI
CHI began in 1996 as a combination of the Sisters of Charity Health Care Systems in Cincinnati, the Franciscan and two other health systems (one in Pennsylvania and one in Nebraska). In 1997, the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth health in Kentucky was incorporated into CHI, starting off a wave of many other incorporations of health systems over the following two decades (Our History, 2019). CHI is now one of the nation’s largest health systems and following approval of the Vatican for CHI to merge with Dignity Health, the merger would make CHI the largest non-profit health care system in the U.S. (Bannow & Meyer, 2018). There are no important historical influences that have motivated or impacted the organization’s development. Essentially the organization came about as a consolidation of health systems across the U.S. that continues today, with the main thrust of the consolidation being to bring like-minded services systems under one umbrella so as to enhance management and expand the footprint of the non-profit.
Leadership
As a result of the merger between CHI and Dignity Health, a new leadership team has been established called CommonSpirit. This team has a simple mission statement, which is “to serve the common good” (About Us, 2019). Lloyd Dean and Kevin Lofton are the co-CEOs and there are seventeen different women religious congregations that work with CommonSpirit to provide leadership for the organization. A representative from each of the congregations meets twice a year on the Board of Stewardship Trustees that oversees the leadership of CHI (Leadership, 2019). Aside from the congregational representatives, there are 14 members of the Board of Stewardship Trustess, all of whom have a leadership role in guiding the various divisions of the organization.
Lloyd Dean is a member of the Board and co-CEO of CommonSpirit and is described as a “health care visionary” who previously served as CEO of Dignity Health and oversaw the transformation of Dignity as a holding company to a health care enterprise with 41 hospitals and 400 care facilities (Lloyd H. Dean, 2019). Another member of the Board is Dr. Polly Bednash, who “served as executive director of the American Association of Colleges and Nursing for nearly three decades and is now a visiting professor at the Australian Catholic University” (Polly Bednash, 2019). As there are more than 30 persons who act as part of the Board, they all contribute in many different ways, applying their own unique backgrounds—when in management, medicine, or congregational leadership—to the needs of stakeholders within the organization.
Management Skills Needed
Based on the organization type, management skills that the frontline managers would need to assure success of the non-profit healthcare organization consist of empathy, social and emotional intelligence, servant leadership, and communication. Empathy is needed first and foremost because managers on the front line must deal with a diverse group of people—from patients and clients to workers and other members of the staff. The manager on the frontline is constantly having to put himself in the shoes of others, and that requires understanding most of all. The manager must also have social and emotional intelligence which allows the manager to understand what is not being communicated orally by reading body language, having knowledge of social contexts and cultural cues so as to be able to provide the right kind of emotional and social supports on an as-needed basis. Servant leadership is needed because this gets to the essence of what the health care organization is all about: tending to the needs of others in the community. And communication is essential because without strong communication flows there will be breakdowns in teamwork and interdepartmental organization as well as a lack of quality care shown to patients.
Conclusion
Catholic Health Initiatives is one of the biggest non-profit health care organizations in the U.S. and once the merger with Dignity Health is complete, it will be the largest non-profit health system in the U.S. It started out as a consolidation firm, bringing smaller regional Catholic health systems under one roof. These health systems included facilities for assisted living, nursing homes, hospitals and so on. Today, CHI is guided by CommonSpirit and the Board of Stewardship Trustees, who oversee the vast array of specialties that CHI now provides across many different states through the U.S.
References
About Us. (2019). CommonSpirit. Retrieved from https://commonspirit.org/about-us/
Bannow, T. & Meyer, H. (2018). CHI-Dignity merger cleared by Vatican. Retrieved
from https://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20181016/NEWS/181019911/chi-dignity-merger-cleared-by-vatican
CHI. (2019). Who We Are. Retrieved from https://www.catholichealthinitiatives.org/
Leadership. (2019). CHI. Retrieved from
https://www.catholichealthinitiatives.org/en/who-we-are/about-us-leadership1.html
Lloyd H. Dean. (2019). CommonSpirit. Retrieved from
https://commonspirit.org/leadership/lloyd-dean/
Our History. (2019). CHI. Retrieved from
https://www.catholichealthinitiatives.org/en/who-we-are/about-us-our-history.html
Our Mission. (2019). CHI. Retrieved from
https://www.catholichealthinitiatives.org/en/our-mission.html
Polly Bednash. (2019). CommonSpirit. Retrieved from
https://commonspirit.org/leadership/poly-bednash/
Sendjaya, S., & Sarros, J. C. (2002). Servant leadership: Its origin, development, and
application in organizations. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 9(2), 57-64.
Span, P. (2012). Happier staffers at nonprofit nursing homes. Retrieved from
https://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/happier-staffers-at-nonprofit-nursing-homes/