HSHS Mission Integration meeting held

St. Joseph's Hospital in Breese strives to reflect and live the mission of its sponsors, the Hospital Sisters of St. Francis and Hospital Sisters Health System (HSHS).

As part of that process, Sister Monica Laws, HSHS Vice President of Mission Integration, recently visited the Breese facility to meet with Mission Integration (MI) teams from the system's three Southern Illinois Division hospitals: St. Elizabeth-Belleville, St. Joseph-Breese and St. Joseph-Highland.

“Our mission tells us what to do and Franciscan values show us how to do it,” Sister Monica said.

“There are more than 14,000 HSHS employees and it is the role of the local CEOs to make sure our employees are living the mission,” she said. “My position was developed to help inspire our employees to live our mission and provide the hospitals with a Franciscan connection to the Church.”      

The meeting was held jointly to allow the facilities to learn from each other—another example of the HSHS focus on working together as a three-hospital division and as a 13-hospital system.

From meetings such as this one, held at the St. Joseph-Breese HealthPlex, HSHS will itemize “best practices” to be shared with other system hospitals to improve existing and identify new healthcare services and provide examples of how the Sisters' mission is being continued.

Among the highlights of the St. Joseph-Breese presentation were the 5-Star awards from Professional Research Consultants for quality care in the areas of emergency, inpatient, inpatient medical/surgical and inpatient obstetrics/gynecology. Also noted were high scores on the employee survey, community involvement, hospital-sponsored mission trips, the volunteer program and the HealthPlex.

“We're blessed with folks who go above and beyond,” said Jan Robert, hospital Quality Management director and MI team member. “They're not doing it to ‘meet the standard' but because it's part of our culture—they live it.”

Also on the St. Joseph-Breese MI team are hospital President and CEO Lowell Jones, retired Community Education Director Kathie Heimann, Human Resources Director Kathryn Mines, who is also on the system mission committee, Professional Services Director Jene Bieri, and Utilization Review Director Sue Darr.