This open access volume is the first academic book on the controversial issue of including spiritual care in integrated electronic medical records (EMR). Based on an international study group comprising researchers from Europe (The Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland), the United States, Canada, and Australia, this edited collection provides an overview of different charting practices and experiences in various countries and healthcare contexts. Encompassing case studies and analyses of theological, ethical, legal, healthcare policy, and practical issues, the volume is a groundbreaking reference for future discussion, research, and strategic planning for inter- or multi-faith healthcare chaplains and other spiritual care providers involved in the new field of documenting spiritual care in EMR. Topics explored among the chapters include: Spiritual Care Charting/Documenting/Recording/Assessment Charting Spiritual Care: Psychiatric and Psychotherapeutic Aspects Palliative Chaplain Spiritual Assessment Progress Notes Charting Spiritual Care: Ethical Perspectives Charting Spiritual Care in Digital Health: Analyses and Perspectives Charting Spiritual Care: The Emerging Role of Chaplaincy Records in Global Health Care is an essential resource for researchers in interprofessional spiritual care and healthcare chaplaincy, healthcare chaplains and other spiritual caregivers (nurses, physicians, psychologists, etc.), practical theologians and health ethicists, and church and denominational representatives.

Encouraging a broad, compassionate, humanistic approach to spirituality, this book shows how patients' spiritual needs can be communicated well within interdisciplinary teams, leading to better patient wellbeing. This book describes the art of charting patients' spiritual perspectives in an open way that will help physicians and nurses to better direct medical care. It includes practical information on how to distil spiritual needs into pragmatic language, helping to demystify spiritual experience. Drawing on his extensive practical experience, the author also suggests key points to emphasise that will enrich chart notes for medical records, including brief, relative narratives, trusting one's own impressions, reflecting holistically on the patient's life, patient attitudes towards treatment and recovery, and describing families' opinions on the health care situation of their loved one. The book shows healthcare professionals of all disciplines how to engage in a shared responsibility for the spiritual care of their patients.

In the last fifteen years, the field of palliative care has experienced a surge in interest in spirituality as an important aspect of caring for seriously ill and dying patients. While spirituality has been generally recognized as an essential dimension of palliative care, uniformity of spiritual care practice has been lacking across health care settings due to factors like varying understandings and definitions of spirituality, lack of resources and practical tools, and limited professional education and training in spiritual care. In order to address these shortcomings, more than forty spiritual and palliative care experts gathered for a national conference to discuss guidelines for incorporating spirituality into palliative care. Their consensus findings form the basis of Making Health Care Whole. This important new resource provides much-needed definitions and charts a common language for addressing spiritual care across the disciplines of medicine, nursing, social work, chaplaincy, psychology, and other groups. It presents models of spiritual care that are broad and inclusive, and provides tools for screening, assessment, care planning, and interventions. This book also advocates a team approach to spiritual care, and specifies the roles of each professional on the team. Serving as both a scholarly review of the field as well as a practical resource with specific recommendations to improve spiritual care in clinical practice, Making Health Care Whole will benefit hospices and palliative care programs in hospitals, home care services, and long-term care services. It will also be a valuable addition to the curriculum at seminaries, schools of theology, and medical and nursing schools.

The first comprehensive resource for pastoral care in the face of disaster--a vital resource for clergy, seminarians, pastoral counselors and caregivers of all faith traditions. Updated and expanded! This essential resource for clergy and caregivers integrates the classic foundations of pastoral care with the unique challenges of disaster response on community, regional and national levels. Offering the latest theological perspectives and tools--along with basic theory and skills from the best disaster response texts, research and concepts--the contributors to this resource are innovators in their fields and represent Christianity, Judaism, Islam and more. New to this edition are chapters on: N-VOAD Points of Consensus and Guidelines--A Developing Conversation Ethics in Disaster Spiritual Care Assessment Developing a Theological Framework for Providing Disaster Spiritual Care And More Exploring how spiritual care changes following a disaster, and including a comprehensive explanation of a disaster's lifecycle, this is the definitive guidebook for counseling not only the victims of disaster but also the clergy and caregivers who are called to service in the wake of crisis.

The first comprehensive resource for pastoral care in the Jewish tradition—and a vital resource for counselors and caregivers of other faith traditions. The essential reference for rabbis, cantors, and laypeople who are called to spiritually accompany those encountering joy, sorrow, and change—now in paperback. This groundbreaking volume draws upon both Jewish tradition and the classical foundations of pastoral care to provide invaluable guidance. Offering insight on pastoral care technique, theory, and theological implications, the contributors to Jewish Pastoral Care are innovators in their fields, and represent all four contemporary Jewish movements. This comprehensive resource provides you with the latest theological perspectives and tools, along with basic theory and skills for assisting the ill and those who care for them, the aging and dying, those with dementia and other mental disorders, engaged couples, and others, and for responding to issues such as domestic violence, substance abuse, and disasters.

Kalyanamitra: A Model for Buddhist Spiritual Care presents research and analysis into the professional practice of Buddhist spiritual care based on the work of actual chaplains. Kalyanamitra is one of less than a dozen books about this young but growing profession, and the first to present a comprehensive theor

Is it appropriate, or even legal, for government to provide spiritual care for its citizens? Winnifred Fallers Sullivan shows that courts and administrative agencies have, for better or for worse, already decided this question. Religious freedom in American today means government affirmatively providing opportunities for Americans to encounter their religious selves and realize their religious commitments. How did this happen? The answer, Sullivan shows, is an emerging religious practice--the ministry offered by chaplains in secular settings, generally called a ministry of presence. In this eye-opening book, Sullivan details the legal recognition and regulation of the spiritual care delivered by governmental and quasi-governmental chaplaincies, as well as by chaplaincies within ostensibly private but regulated industries, such as hospitals and colleges. Across America today, there are chaplains in airports, fire departments, prisons, hospitals, the military, unions, and even businesses and workplaces. Chaplains operate at the intersection of the sacred and the secular, brokers responsible for ministering to the wandering souls of a globalized economy while sacralizing institutions we generally consider unmarked by any religious identity. A book with profound implications for how we understand the relationship between religion and law in contemporary America, "A Ministry of Presence" will interest readers in legal studies, religious studies, sociology, and public policy. "