What Role Does Faith Play In Consumer-Driven Healthcare?

In recent years, much as been said about how consumers are becoming active managers of their own care.  Healthcare providers and hospitals have responded to this growing trend by continually focusing on customer service, quality and advancing medical technology.

However, these activities are often separated from consumers’ wider lives.  For example, faith becomes much more important when a person (or a loved one is) seriously ill.  Given this, some have wondered whether consumers will begin to view hospitals within the context of their own faith.  In fact, some may decide that the spiritual underpinnings of a hospital’s philosophy are just as important as key quality measures.  

An article published in the April edition of HealthLeaders magazine addressed some of these issues and asked some tough questions such as:

“How does a hospital system follow its mission to serve a healthcare community's needs even as industry pressure calls for hospitals to be more streamlined and specialized in their service offerings? As consumers become more involved in their healthcare decisions, will they look toward those healthcare providers with an affinity to their beliefs as a deciding factor? As science makes healthcare decisions at the beginning and end of life more complex, how do hospitals reconcile those choices with their teachings? And in an industry increasingly obsessed with measurement and accountability, how do faith-based system leaders know they are living up to the ultimate goals set by an authority who does not use dashboards?”

These are questions with few clear-cut answers.  What’s your take?  Should faith play a role in how care is provisioned?