Catholic healthcare leadership in transition

The majority of Catholic hospitals in the United States have a rich tradition and can trace their origins to a religious congregation of brothers or sisters. The first privately owned Catholic hospital was founded in 1728 by the Ursuline Sisters. Today, there are over 600 Catholic Hospitals in the United States. The vision, mission, and charism of the sponsoring order that established them formed the identity of each of these hospitals. The hospitals were dependent on the founding congregation of religious brothers or sisters for leadership, management, and staff. These brave and courageous individuals worked, led, and built the significant infrastructure that is now a part of healthcare in the United States.;In recent decades, Catholic Hospitals have undergone massive transformations due to the decreasing numbers of men and women religious. The reduction in available workforce has forced significant changes in the leadership of these institutions. Leadership positions in Catholic hospitals have shifted from religious men or women to lay leaders.;This grounded theory study examines a purposeful sample of three Catholic hospitals, each founded by a religious community of sisters, to study the leadership of Catholic healthcare institutions. It uses the Servant Leadership Model (Greenleaf, [1970] 1991; Greenleaf [1972] 1996; Spears, [2000] 2010) as a guide for these interviews. The researcher interviewed the senior leadership and sponsor personnel at these institutions. The interview had three primary objectives: clarify how sponsor identity is communicated to the community, identify the leader's characteristics that aid them in the mission, and note how these characteristics affect the way they make decisions that continue the sponsor's mission, vision, and charism.;Findings from this study indicate that the future of Catholic healthcare will require careful leadership to ensure that the mission of the founding orders remain firmly embedded in the culture of these institutions. Recommendations for future research and concrete change are made including improvement of current programming for leadership development, the inclusion of all employees in continuing the mission of the organization, and increasing the involvement of the Catholic Church in supporting Catholic healthcare.