Most hospitals either have chaplains on staff or relationships with local houses of worship to bring spiritual leaders in for everyday patient counseling.
Beyond a chaplain's typical duties, however, it is important to remember what roles these people might play in your emergency operations plan. Ask your emergency management coordinator whether he or she has considered this aspect.
Accounting for chaplains in your emergency response plans and related employee training will help better prepare your hospital for disasters, said Marge McFarlane, PhD, MS, CHSP, principal at Superior Performance, LLC, in Eau Claire, WI.
Such efforts can also help meet The Joint Commission's requirements for emergency management.
For example, chaplains will be able to assist a mental health unit to ease patient and staff member stress brought on by disaster trauma—as Julie Greig, Dominican Sister and hospital chaplain at Ben Taub General Hospital in Houston, did during Hurricane Ike in 2008.
Grieg is part of the response team at her hospital and the overarching Texas Medical Center network of 47 area facilities.
Responsibilities for chaplains to embrace
Chaplain duties during and after a catastrophe could include the following:
- Providing mental health recommendations to incident commanders based on response needs
- Developing risk communication to staff members about victim mental health concerns
- Meeting the needs of staff members and their families during extended disaster recovering periods
These duties can connect into an emergency management training session as a way to better utilize chaplain skills, McFarlane said. The training might include what she calls "psychological first aid," in which mental health providers give pointers to help disaster victims meet basic needs and promote safety.
That approach ties in nicely with The Joint Commission, which calls for periodic "stress debriefings" in its emergency management standards.
"What we're trained to do is to look beyond the words the person is speaking [and instead] be attentive to what's going on," Greig said.