Training Healthcare Personnel to Meet the Religious Needs of Patients

What does religion have to do with healthcare?

There is an increasing body of research that shows a direct and positive correlation between religion/spirituality and health and well-being.

According to Dr. Jeff Levin, a social epidemiologist and former medical school professor who has been researching the relationship between spirituality and health since the mid-1980s, the concept of a body-mind-spirit connection is already changing medical practice, medical education, and research. These changes are based on scientific epidemiology and will are here to stay.

In fact, the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations’ (JCAHO) standards require care providers to address patients’ religion and spirituality.

Why is training on religious issues important for healthcare personnel?

Despite the fact that nearly two-thirds of American medical schools in 2001 required or offered elective courses on religion, spirituality, and medicine, few doctors address the spiritual needs of patients. Even in strongly religious areas of the United States, less than one-third of physicians even inquire about the patients’ religious denomination, and fewer than one in ten routinely take a spiritual history.

In fact, many physicians say they feel uncomfortable addressing religious issues or don’t have time to do this. Others don’t see addressing spiritual issues as part of their job, don’t understand why it should be done, and don’t know how or when to do it.

Caregivers lack the knowledge to address their patients’ religious needs. Learning how to ask the right questions and how to incorporate religious beliefs into a patient’s treatment plan can make a difference in that person’s health.

In addition, today’s healthcare system is serving an increasingly diverse population. Non-European immigrants including Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists are now our healthcare providers and our patients. To give proper care, we need to learn new information and new skills.

Simply stated, religious diversity training for healthcare professionals improves the quality of healthcare.

How do religious issues arise in healthcare?

• A Jewish woman received new heart valves (from a pig) and, at first, did not recover well from the surgery. Her body did not accept the new valve until her Rabbi reassured her that, while Jewish law prohibits the consumption of pork, the pig valves are acceptable because they will save her life – and life is more important than the laws regarding pork.
• Hospital staff believed a Muslim man was being stubborn when he refused the injection of his medication and they denied his request for it to be administered later. They subsequently learned that he refused the injection because of his religious beliefs – it was Ramadan, during which Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset daily. The patient believed that receiving the injection before sunset would violate his fast, a serious offense according to his religious beliefs.
• A nurse mistook a resident’s rosary beads for a necklace and placed them around her patient’s neck. Rosary beads, used by Christians for a meditative form of prayer, are often considered sacred. Christians would not usually wear them on their body.
• A nurse admitted that for years she had turned televised Christian services on for all her residents – until she learned that Jews and Muslims do not believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah.

Why the Tanenbaum Center?

The Tanenbaum Center is a non-sectarian, secular, non-profit organization that has successfully built interreligious understanding for over ten years. The International Labour Organization of the U.N. identified us as the leading resource on Religious Diversity in the Workplace and one of the only organizations worldwide doing this work.

The Tanenbaum Center offers a comprehensive and effective training program to address religion and healthcare. Of professionals trained to date, 82% showed improved test scores and 100% of professionals recommended the program for their colleagues.

How does the Tanenbaum Center’s unique religious diversity training give healthcare facilities a competitive edge?

The Tanenbaum Center’s religious diversity training for healthcare facilities enhances patient and staff satisfaction, and gives facilities an opportunity to address institutional and management issues around religious bias and accommodation.

The training helps healthcare providers understand how different religious beliefs can affect people who are sick and dying. It gives providers knowledge and skills that enable them to provide caring environments for patients from all cultures and religious traditions. The reputation for providing such care is a component of good will that can give a healthcare facility a competitive edge.

Also, by allowing staff to reflect on these issues, their own beliefs and how those beliefs affect their work, the Tanenbaum Center’s program addresses one of the greatest sources of staff dissatisfaction – the belief that the cultural backgrounds of staff are not given respect.

Significantly, the Tanenbaum Center offers expertise on religious diversity issues from a Human Resources standpoint. Employers today increasingly face issues of religious bias and accommodation. The Tanenbaum Center provides guidance to executives and management on best practices and proactive solutions to incipient problems. We have helped many leading companies, not-for-profit organizations, and government agencies introduce religion into their diversity and inclusion initiatives.

And many more companies are benefiting from a valuable new resource we recently published: the first comprehensive, interactive managers’ toolkit on religious diversity in the workplace.