An Iowa hospital uses a "mission discernment" process to create an expensive but worthwhile project.
Mercy Medical Center - North Iowa, has discovered a way of inviting God into its decision-making processes.
Founded in Mason City, Iowa by the Sisters of Mercy in 1916 as St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, Mercy Medical Center has a long tradition of listening to God. Spiritual discernment, practiced by the Sisters of Mercy, found its way into Mercy Medical Center through the various Sisters who served in the role of CEO from its founding until 1995. After 1995, when the declining number of Sisters with health-care administration experience required the baton to be passed to lay leadership, discernment remained a central practice.
Now, whenever a major decision needs to be made, the senior leadership team uses (or delegates a subcommittee to use) a formal group discernment practice known as the "mission discernment" process. This formal mission discernment process is a way of "hardwiring" attention to discernment and mission into senior decision-making scenarios.
A booklet distributed to the board, the senior leadership team, and various other leaders throughout the system describes the process thoroughly and matter-of-factly. At Mercy Medical, attention to the transcendent is just as important as attention to spreadsheets and clinical issues. Each has its role to play, and they work together in a mutually respectful dialogue.
For example, the mission discernment process was used to consider whether Mercy Medical should open a preadolescent psychiatric services program. Because other Iowa hospitals had closed their programs, children from as far as four hours away were being brought to Mercy's emergency room and then had nowhere to go.
CEO Jim Fitzpatrick assembled a team to use the mission discernment process. Convinced that the process was "expensive (in terms of senior leadership's time) but worth it in the long run (in terms of depth of consideration, spiritual grounding, and buy-in from all sectors)," Fitzpatrick directed Mission Services to facilitate a mission discernment process. The mission leader and mission fellow led a collaborative process, which included the vice president of finance and several behavioral services and emergency room clinicians.
According to senior vice president Doug Morse, a decision that for some groups would have been very easy because "there's no money in it, it requires staff you can't hire and space you don't have," for Mercy required serious wrestling. While the financial and clinical aspects were carefully considered, the discernment team also weighed Mercy's core value of caring for the "poor and underserved," especially women and children.
They identified three options: building a preadolescent behavioral program of their own, continuing limited admission for crisis support and then transferring patients to facilities in Des Moines, and partnering with a local center to help that program strengthen its services. The team presented their report to the senior leadership team.
Based on the thorough values analysis of the mission discernment process, the senior leadership team decided to continue with limited support with an openness to future collaboration with the local center, feeling that this option honored Mercy's mission and best served the needs of the children.
Through honoring its mission and being open to the transcendent, Mercy Medical Center has learned how to balance financial issues, clinical issues, and "soft" values. Mercy Medical has discovered how mission discernment can help it be true to all of its values, and thus better serve the community.
Margaret Benefiel, Ph.D., author of "Soul at Work: Spiritual Leadership in Organizations" (from which this column is drawn), works with healthcare leaders, Fortune 500 companies, and nonprofits to help them develop spiritual leadership. Contact her by email at
