Formerly | Catholic Healthcare West (1986–2012) |
---|---|
Company type | Nonprofit organization |
Industry | Healthcare |
Founded | 1986 |
Headquarters | China Basin Landing, , |
Number of locations | 39 acute care hospitals 250 ancillary care sites |
Area served | Arizona, California, and Nevada |
Key people | Lloyd H. Dean, President/CEO Daniel J. Morissette, CFO |
Services | Hospital management |
Revenue | $10,522,568,000 USD (2012) |
$59,112,000 USD (2012) | |
$132,549,000 USD (2012) | |
Owner | CommonSpirit Health |
Number of employees | 55,000 |
Website | dignityhealth |
Footnotes /references 2012 Audited Financial Statement About Dignity Health |
Dignity Health (formerly Catholic Healthcare West) is a California-based not-for-profit public-benefit corporation that operated hospitals and ancillary care facilities in three states. Dignity Health was the fifth-largest hospital system in the nation and the largest not-for-profit hospital provider in California. [1]
Formerly a Catholic institution, the organization went independent in 2012 and adopted its new name. In February 2019, Dignity Health merged with Catholic Health Initiatives, becoming CommonSpirit Health. [2]
Dignity Health still operates today as a separate entity.
Its headquarters are located in the China Basin Landing building in San Francisco. [3]
Catholic Healthcare West was founded in 1986, when the Sisters of Mercy Burlingame Regional Community and the Sisters of Mercy Auburn Regional Community merged their health care ministries into one organization. [4] [5]
In 2010, Dignity Health, Blue Shield of California, and Hill Physicians Medical Group formed an Accountable Care Organization that covers 41,000 individuals in the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS). [6]
From the time of its founding until 2012, the company was an official ministry of the Catholic Church. [7] [8] In 2012, the company's corporate governance structure changed, moving it out of the Catholic Church's purview and resulting in a name change to Dignity Health. [7] [8] [9]
Adeptus Health partnered with Dignity Health to establish the Dignity Health Arizona General Hospital in Laveen, Arizona. [10]
In 2018, Dignity Health and CHI received approval from the Catholic Church, through the Vatican, to merge. [11] The merger was completed, on February 1, 2019, under a new name, CommonSpirit Health, [12] forming the second-largest nonprofit hospital chain in the United States. [13]
Dignity Health was the official health care provider of the San Francisco Giants. [14]
The Board of Directors [15] was responsible for approving major decisions affecting Dignity Health’s health care business, such as long-range strategic plans, the allocation of capital, joint ventures, and major acquisitions and sales. Dignity Health's Board of Directors are:
Although Dignity Health is not a Catholic institution, the organization owned and operated 24 Catholic hospitals. While overall fiscal responsibility for these hospitals rests with the Board of Directors, certain reserve rights are still held by the religious orders that founded them. The Sponsorship Council [16] comprised sisters from each of the six Catholic religious communities that first opened each of the Catholic hospitals owned by Dignity Health. Each community selected one woman to act as one of the six members of the Sponsorship Council. The six Catholic religious communities were represented by:[ citation needed ]
On December 21, 2010, Bishop Thomas Olmsted of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix declared that a Catholic Healthcare West hospital, St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center, could no longer call itself a Catholic institution after a procedure was performed in 2009 to end a pregnancy to save a woman’s life. [17] In a public statement, Bishop Olmsted said the procedure was in contrast to a direct abortion, [18] which is in direct violation of The Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services. [19]
In a statement, St. Joseph’s President Linda Hunt said the hospital would comply with Olmsted’s decision, but she defended the actions of the hospital staff, stating, "If we are presented with a situation in which a pregnancy threatens a woman’s life, our first priority is to save both patients. If that is not possible, we will always save the life we can save, and that is what we did in this case. Morally, ethically, and legally, we simply cannot stand by and let someone die whose life we might be able to save." [20] The story made national headlines. [21]
Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association of the United States, defended St. Joseph’s decision to terminate the pregnancy. "They had been confronted with a heartbreaking situation," she said in a formal statement. "They carefully evaluated the patient’s situation and correctly applied the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services to it, saving the only life that was possible to save." [22]
In 2012, trustees of Ashland Community Hospital in Ashland, Oregon, invited Dignity Health to acquire it for debt. Community members raised concerns about the possible takeover, pointing to restrictions in Dignity's Statement of Common Values [23] that might mean that the hospital would no longer offer abortion services, or euthanasia services under Oregon's 1997 Death With Dignity Act. [24] Asked by Ashland mayor John Stromberg if the Statement of Common Values could be modified, Dignity Vice-President for Ethics and Justice Education Carol Bayley told community members, "As far as loosening it, don't hold out hope. We have our feet in Catholic mud, there is no denying it." [24] Facing increasing community opposition, Dignity Health ceased negotiations without explanation on October 30, 2012. [25]
Dignity Health was included by California Attorney General Kamala Harris on the antitrust investigation, launched in September 2012, into whether growing consolidation in the state's hospitals and physician groups was driving up the health care costs. [26]
As of summer 2018, Dignity Health did not provide many services considered routine by non-religious providers, including some emergency procedures. Dignity Health has cited the "Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services" as its guideline in approving or refusing medical procedures. [27] [28] That document is prepared by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which is not a medical organization. A particular controversy results from Dignity Health's non-Catholic marketing style, and unclear representations of which facilities are and are not considered Catholic. [29]
Dignity Health operates 40 hospitals—24 Catholic and 15 non-Catholic: [30]
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is the episcopal conference of the Catholic Church in the United States. Founded in 1966 as the joint National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) and United States Catholic Conference (USCC), it is composed of all active and retired members of the Catholic hierarchy in the United States and the territory of the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Seán Patrick O'Malley is an American cardinal of the Catholic Church serving as archbishop of the Archdiocese of Boston in Massachusetts since 2003. He is a member of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin and was elevated by the Vatican to the rank of cardinal in 2006.
Swedish Health Services, formerly Swedish Medical Center, is the largest nonprofit health provider in the Seattle metropolitan area. It operates five hospital campuses, ambulatory care centers in the cities of Redmond and Mill Creek, and Swedish Medical Group, a network of more than 100 primary-care and specialty clinics.
Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) St. Alexius Health Bismarck is a regional, acute care medical center offering inpatient and outpatient medical services, including primary and specialty physician clinics, home health and hospice services, medical equipment services, and a fitness and human performance center. It is a level II trauma center. With a tertiary hospital in Bismarck, the system also consists of critical access hospitals (CAHs) in Carrington, ND, Dickinson, ND, Devils Lake, ND, Garrison, ND, Turtle Lake, ND, Washburn, ND and Williston, ND, and numerous clinics and outpatient services. CHI St. Alexius Health manages four CAHs in North Dakota - Elgin, ND, Linton, ND and Wishek, ND, as well as Mobridge Regional Medical Center in Mobridge, South Dakota.
Mercy Medical Center is a Catholic hospital in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The smaller of two metro hospitals, Mercy frequently ranks as either the best in Iowa or one of the top three. Mercy is a non-profit, acute-care medical center with a level III trauma center. Mercy Cedar Rapids is independent and not directly associated with other Mercy hospitals across the state and country. In addition to the non-profit hospital and clinics, Mercy operates outpatient and urgent-care clinics in a for-profit partnership with MercyCare Community Physicians.
Conscience clauses are legal clauses attached to laws in some parts of the United States and other countries which permit pharmacists, physicians, and/or other providers of health care not to provide certain medical services for reasons of religion or conscience. It can also involve parents withholding consenting for particular treatments for their children.
A hospital network is a public, non-profit or for-profit company or organization that provides two or more hospitals and other broad healthcare facilities and services. A hospital network may include hospitals in one or more regions within one or more states within one or more countries. A hospital network has one headquarter, usually within one of the regions served by the network facilities.
UPMC Mercy is a main hospital facility of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) and is located in the Uptown section of the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, adjacent to Duquesne University, and a few blocks from the PPG Paints Arena and downtown Pittsburgh. It is the first chartered hospital to have been founded in the city of Pittsburgh and it is also the first hospital in the world to have been established by the Sisters of Mercy. It is also the first teaching hospital in the region, accepting residents to teaching positions beginning in 1848, one year after opening its doors.
Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) was a national Catholic healthcare system, with headquarters in Englewood, Colorado. CHI was a nonprofit, faith-based health system formed, in 1996, through the consolidation of three Catholic health systems. It was one of the United States' largest healthcare systems. In February 2019, CHI merged with Dignity Health, forming CommonSpirit Health.
Asante Ashland Community Hospital is a hospital in Ashland, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1907, it is part of the Asante Health System. In 2012, it explored an affiliation with Dignity Health, with the latter stopping negotiations in October 2012 over some resistance to the plan. On November 15, 2012, Ashland Community Hospital chose to partner with Asante, the owner of Three Rivers Medical Center and Rogue Regional Medical Center, to build a stronger financial base for the hospital. Ashland's city council approved the transfer to Asante in June 2013.
Trinity Health is an American not-for-profit Catholic health system operating 92 hospitals in 22 states, including 120 continuing care locations encompassing home care, hospice, PACE and senior living facilities. Based in Livonia, Michigan, Trinity Health employs more than 120,000 people including 5,300 physicians.
Thomas James Olmsted is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as bishop of the Diocese of Phoenix in Arizona from 2003 to 2022.
The official teachings of the Catechism of the Catholic Church promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 1992 oppose all forms of abortion procedures whose direct purpose is to destroy a zygote, blastocyst, embryo or fetus, since it holds that "human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person – among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life". However, the Church does recognize as morally legitimate certain acts which indirectly result in the death of the fetus, as when the direct purpose is removal of a cancerous womb. Canon 1397 §2 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law imposes automatic excommunication on Latin Catholics who actually procure an abortion, if they fulfill the conditions for being subject to such a sanction. Eastern Catholics are not subject to automatic excommunication, but by canon 1450 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches they are to be excommunicated by decree if found guilty of the same action, and they may be absolved of the sin only by the eparchial bishop. In addition to teaching that abortion is immoral, the Catholic Church also generally makes public statements and takes actions in opposition to its legality.
The excommunication of Margaret McBride occurred with the sanctioning by the American religious sister Margaret McBride in November 2009 of an abortion at a Roman Catholic hospital, the St. Joseph's Hospital, in Phoenix. It was lifted in December 2011. Her decision and her subsequent excommunication aroused controversy in the areas of medical ethics and Catholic theology.
POLST is an approach to improving end-of-life care in the United States, encouraging providers to speak with the severely ill and create specific medical orders to be honored by health care workers during a medical crisis. POLST began in Oregon in 1991 and currently exists in 46 states; some of the 46 states have the program in development. The POLST document is a standardized, portable, brightly colored single page medical order that documents a conversation between a provider and an individual with a serious illness or frailty towards the end of life. A POLST form allows emergency medical services to provide treatment that the individual prefers before possibly transporting to an emergency facility.
The Catholic Church is the largest non-government provider of health care services in the world. It has around 18,000 clinics, 16,000 homes for the elderly and those with special needs, and 5,500 hospitals, with 65 percent of them located in developing countries. In 2010, the Church's Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Health Care Workers said that the Church manages 26% of the world's health care facilities. The Church's involvement in health care has ancient origins.
The National Maternity Hospital, popularly known as Holles Street Hospital, is a large maternity hospital in Ireland. It is at the eastern corner of Merrion Square, at its junction with Holles Street and Lower Mount Street in Dublin. It is managed by Ireland East Hospital Group.
Simone Campbell, SSS, is an American Catholic religious sister, lawyer, lobbyist and executive director of NETWORK. She belongs to the Sisters of Social Service. She is known as an outspoken advocate for social justice.
Maternal somatic support after brain death occurs when a brain dead patient is pregnant and their body is kept alive to deliver a fetus. It occurs very rarely internationally. Even among brain dead patients, in a U.S. study of 252 brain dead patients from 1990–96, only 5 (2.8%) cases involved pregnant women between 15 and 45 years of age.
CommonSpirit Health is a health system based in the United States, the country's largest Catholic hospital chain and its second-largest nonprofit hospital chain. It operates more than 700 care sites and 142 hospitals in 21 states.