Twelfth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

The central goal of this paper is to increase the reader’s knowledge of an integrative approach to the healthcare encounter by explaining the ‘theoretical’ and demonstrating the ‘clinical’ utility of selectively incorporating all dimensions of the patient’s reality into the healthcare setting. This involves moving beyond the biopsychosocial paradigm and includes awakening the practitioner to the ease with which the spiritual, religious, or mystical (SRM) dimension of human experience may be seamlessly and routinely integrated into any healthcare environment. This approach, for some, represents heterodoxy to the established protocols existing within the healthcare arena. Notably, what I am proposing extends far beyond the simple inclusion of the patient’s religious affiliation in the social history admission forms and extends, ideally, to the very fabric of the provider-patient exchange. An overwhelming array of peer-reviewed research now exists that supports improved healthcare outcome when patient’s SRM resources are leveraged into their healthcare treatment. The incorporation of these strategies further promotes patient-centered, patient-guided service delivery thereby promoting the patient’s perception of being heard and understood. This may enhance HEDIS quality improvement metrics while simultaneously maximizing efficacy and efficiency in the healthcare arena. This paper further offers hermeneutical illumination of foundational principles inextricably intertwined with unveiling and legitimately integrating the spiritual domain into healthcare service delivery. The spiritual dimension of reality is an immutable, irrevocable, and universal aspect of being human and remains as relevant to individuals now as it has been throughout all of the endless ages of a never-ending eternity.