What are the responsibilities and job description for the Spiritual Counselor - Hospice - Full Time Days position at Holy Name Medical Center?
Description
Spiritual Counselor
Welcome to Holy Name, a medical center where innovation is not just a goal — it's a commitment. Here, medical excellence thrives, allowing hope to reign supreme and leaving no room for fear. At our hospital, every patient is cared for with undivided attention — because healing every soul is our sole focus.
Holy Name is New Jersey's only independent Catholic health system, comprising a 361-bed acute care hospital, a renowned cancer center, a state-of-the-art fitness center, a residential hospice, a prestigious nursing school, and an extensive physician network. Healing at Holy Name goes beyond medicine and technology – it is infused with faith, conviction, compassion, and a commitment to educating the next generation of healthcare professionals through graduate medical education, a Pharmacy Residency Program, and our Institute for Simulation Learning. Our mission to provide care for the body, mind, and soul spans education, prevention, diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation, and overall wellness. This is at the core of who we are and what we do, and we've done it this way across generations, every single day, for nearly 100 years. Every innovation, medical breakthrough, and groundbreaking treatment is powered by some of the best minds in medicine, ensuring nothing is left on the table or the road to recovery.
A Brief Overview
The Spiritual Counselor provides emotional and spiritual counseling to our hospice patients, families, and bereaved. Duties include charting on patient interactions, completing initial spiritual assessments, participating in weekly interdisciplinary treatment team meetings, and acting as a liaison between other community clergy and hospice patients. The Spiritual Counselor is the hospice's link to the community regarding spiritual care of the dying and their families and facilitates available contacts within the local faith community, if requested by patients and / or families, according to Medicare Conditions of Participation. Furthermore, The Spiritual Counselors will participate and support hospices bereavement services and programs.
What you will do
- Conducts spiritual assessment of factors related to the hospice patient's illness, need for care, response to treatment and adjustment along with the social history, family dynamics, home situation, financial resources and availability of community resources
- Provide direct spiritual support and / or counseling to patients and families in keeping with their beliefs
- Serves as a member of the Interdisciplinary Team involved in patient care planning, with a primary focus on spiritual components of care
- Facilities patients and families access to spiritual care through community clergy members as requested and desired
- Develops and implements plan of care and visit frequency based on the assessment to include counseling, coordination of and referral to community agencies
- Documents all visits and communication in electronic medical records including the process and outcome of interventions for each visit
- Completes required admission paperwork within five (5) days and daily visit notes within 24 hours of patient visit
- Attends team meetings and participates in the interdisciplinary group meeting for specific case review and Plans of Care
- Provides ongoing counseling to patient and family members, related to identified issues addressed in the plan of care and education related to advanced directives, end of life care and signs and symptoms of death and dying
- Reports changes or pertinent factors in a patient's psychosocial condition or environmental situation to the hospice team
- Incorporates the physiological and developmental age of patients into the overall plan for the delivery of patient care
- Develops and maintains a professional relationship with houses of worship in the community and keeps an updated directory and knowledge of resources
- Attends continuing education programs for updated knowledge of trends and developments in the field of practice
- Performs other duties and activities as assigned by the Directors
Education Qualifications
Experience Qualifications
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
Licenses and Certifications
Holy Name is a mission-driven facility whose quality standards and philosophy are rooted in the principles of its founders, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace. Those principles are exercised daily by the Medical Center's dedicated and talented team of physicians, nurses, allied health employees, and a wide variety of non-clinical administrative and operational staff members. Holy Name is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
