SSM Health Behavioral Health & Impact
Supporting our community’s health means many things, from building state of the art medical facilities to funding patient-centered programs to offering innovative training, education, and support to our region’s SSM Health care workers. For both SSM Health caregivers and their patients, access to compassionate mental and behavioral health care is crucial.
Nearly one in five people in the United States lives with a mental or behavioral health condition. That means that, today, thousands of our friends, loved ones, and neighbors depend on the availability, consistency, and quality of behavioral health care. By working together, we can make sure they have it.
Your gift to SSM Health Behavioral Health supports:
- Counseling services
- Addiction recovery and other patient-centered programs
- Caregiver relief and support
- Innovative behavioral health training and education
- And more
Patient & Caregiver Impact: SSM Health Behavioral Health
Schwartz Rounds for Employees
When Tom Bushlack, Ph.D., Regional Director of Mission Integration for SSM Health St. Louis began researching moral distress prevalent among health care providers, he came across Schwartz Rounds—grand rounds style events that focus on a case or a theme related to the emotional impact of patient care that care team members experience.
Recognizing that moral distress was a key component of caregiver burnout, and all-too-aware that health care crisis situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, exacerbate caregiver burnout, he felt compelled to bring the Schwartz Rounds concept to SSM Health. “I wanted to support caregivers during this time of extreme stress,” he shared.
SSM Health Foundation - St. Louis' Urgent Response Fund helped to provide 20 SSM Health employees system-wide to be trained in this method and one year of system-wide membership to allow the ministries to offer Schwartz Rounds. This unique methodology will contribute to the wellbeing of providers and allow for the processing of complex emotions during difficult times in health care.