Increasing Spiritually-Competent Healthcare through an Innovative Interfaith Mobile Application
Lawrence
Last Name Lin
Terminal Degree(s) MD
Title/Position Resident Surgeon
Institution/Organization The Ohio State University
Patients strongly desire their healthcare teams to be cognizant of the religious and spiritual elements of their medical care and health decisions. Medical and other healthcare professional schools have mandated spiritual competency as a core principle of professionalism. However, studies show physicians rarely to infrequently inquire about or assess a patient’s desires and demands regarding their religion and/or spirituality. Many barriers have been reported to impede spiritually-competent care including time, knowledge, and an avoidance of potentially offending the patient.
A mobile application for front-line healthcare workers with immediate access to fundamental knowledge about major world traditions and evidence-based screening tools for referral to advanced spiritual care can overcome critical barriers of insufficient time and knowledge hindering spiritually-competent care. This application should be designed to guide the provider in how to effectively use evidence-based assessments/screening tools, how to interpret the patients’ responses, and what appropriate steps should be taken if any. It should also include glossary information over many world traditions, serving as a guide for the user on what their patients’ beliefs may be and what points of tension that may exist. This project details the design, development, and implementation of an interfaith and spiritual competency in healthcare mobile application as described.
The application will be tested by a minimum of two test institutions where up to 75 test participants will be enrolled to receive the application to utilize for a minimum of 2 hours of screen time each month for two months. Users will provide at least twice monthly feedback, which will be incorporated into the application in iterative developments.
Ultimately, application adoption is intended to increase the number of providers asking and discussing their patients’ concerns regarding religion and spirituality in the clinical setting. This intervention will lead to a more fluid interface between two important communities – the interfaith community of a healthcare system’s providers and the interfaith community of the sick persons who choose to enter a given healthcare system. These groups are often not thought of as traditional interfaith communities yet they are religiously and spiritually diverse communities that must interact with each other on a daily basis to provide the best care possible for patients. In summary, the mobile application will serve as an important tool for providers to overcome common barriers of lack of time and insufficient primary knowledge in order to provide more spiritually-competent medical care.
A mobile application for front-line healthcare workers with immediate access to fundamental knowledge about major world traditions and evidence-based screening tools for referral to advanced spiritual care can overcome critical barriers of insufficient time and knowledge hindering spiritually-competent care. This application should be designed to guide the provider in how to effectively use evidence-based assessments/screening tools, how to interpret the patients’ responses, and what appropriate steps should be taken if any. It should also include glossary information over many world traditions, serving as a guide for the user on what their patients’ beliefs may be and what points of tension that may exist. This project details the design, development, and implementation of an interfaith and spiritual competency in healthcare mobile application as described.
The application will be tested by a minimum of two test institutions where up to 75 test participants will be enrolled to receive the application to utilize for a minimum of 2 hours of screen time each month for two months. Users will provide at least twice monthly feedback, which will be incorporated into the application in iterative developments.
Ultimately, application adoption is intended to increase the number of providers asking and discussing their patients’ concerns regarding religion and spirituality in the clinical setting. This intervention will lead to a more fluid interface between two important communities – the interfaith community of a healthcare system’s providers and the interfaith community of the sick persons who choose to enter a given healthcare system. These groups are often not thought of as traditional interfaith communities yet they are religiously and spiritually diverse communities that must interact with each other on a daily basis to provide the best care possible for patients. In summary, the mobile application will serve as an important tool for providers to overcome common barriers of lack of time and insufficient primary knowledge in order to provide more spiritually-competent medical care.