The Spiritual Care team worked with many stakeholders to include weekend days in its new schedule — to serve patients and families every day of the week.
Office hours:
The team will continue to be on call after hours Friday through Monday nights. However with present staffing, the team will not be able to cover every day of the week.
Therefore on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, a chaplain will not be on call during the night (after 7 p.m. and before 7 a.m.). This is based on the lower volume of night calls during the middle of the week, and the high volume of referrals during Mondays, Fridays and weekends.
With active rounding on units to identify patients early in the day, and working with families, we hope to decrease the need for night calls. For unique emergency situations (multiple casualties in the ED, children’s deaths, unexpected deaths) it will be up to the house supervisors’ discretion to call in a chaplain when warranted, based on patient or family’s request.
The team has updated the after-hours staff resources page to support patients with non-urgent needs during the non-call nights.
If you think your area might be affected by this new schedule in a way we have not considered, please reach out to Gary Sims, Spiritual Care supervisor (Gary.Sims@salemhealth.org) or Cecilia Easdale, Service Excellence operations manager (Cecilia.Easdale@salemhealth.org) for further assistance.
It is our hope to reach more patients in a timely manner, and give this team some needed respite time between office hours and being on call, after two years of very difficult emotional tolls. We deeply appreciate your support and patience while we roll this out!