"Our culture calls us to approach our work with a servant heart, whether we care for patients directly or not. It challenges us to always be attentive to the needs of others and to take steps to address them wholistically, recognizing every person faces personal challenges and deserves our compassion, understanding and respect." [Photo Credit: AdventHealth]
Having served in several senior leadership roles within AdventHealth, I was already familiar with these foundational concepts which shape our faith-based culture and guide us as we provide the highest-quality, whole-person care. Fueled by the thoughtful input of the participants, The Whole Care Experience brought our mission of Extending the Healing Ministry of Christ to life, truly capturing the heart and soul of who we are as an organization.
The experience inspired me and caused me to think more deeply about the importance of our organizational culture. It reminded me that culture is not something that can just be brainstormed, described with words in a brochure or on a website and then checked off a to-do list. It’s something that each of us must nurture and actualize every day with purpose and intentionality as we interact with our patients, families, colleagues and the broader community.
During The Whole Care Experience, participants are guided through a “learning map,” which includes a powerful depiction of our service standards of Love Me, Make It Easy, Own It and Keep Me Safe. In this beautiful illustration the service standards appear as branches of a thriving tree rooted in the notion of having a servant heart. Another image shows a physician kneeling on one knee while caring for a patient with an injured leg. Elsewhere in the illustration Jesus washes a person’s feet, reflecting the physician’s inspiration for his work.
Our culture calls us to approach our work with a servant heart, whether we care for patients directly or not. It challenges us to always be attentive to the needs of others and to take steps to address them wholistically, recognizing every person faces personal challenges and deserves our compassion, understanding and respect.
Our team members have told me that this learning experience has reinvigorated them and provided a greater sense of unity and purpose. They feel more connected to AdventHealth’s history and rich legacy of whole-person care. We are thrilled to give you a glimpse of the work we are doing to strengthen our culture and to share the rich transformation that it is creating.
In the stories of this issue, you’ll hear from the leaders of our four hospitals in the Great Lakes Region as they discuss our culture and how mission is at the forefront of everything we do. You’ll feel inspired as you read a moving patient story from our Bolingbrook hospital, where our team members cared for a patient for more than a year and in the process became his adoptive family. And you’ll learn more about the ways we are caring for our community with health equity initiatives focused on diabetes and drug and alcohol abuse prevention and education.
“No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care,” Theodore Roosevelt once said. And I couldn’t agree more. This is why we’ve ignited a cultural transformation across our organization, where everyone feels valued, where we can extend our mission with more love and compassion, and where we can nurture our God-given potential. Our high-quality care and knowledge are not enough to earn the trust and respect of our patients. It is how we demonstrate genuine concern and care for the well-being of everyone we serve, especially each other, that will truly resonate and build lasting connections.
Monica Reed, MD, is president and CEO of UChicago Medicine AdventHealth Great Lakes Region.
