"To share God’s love by providing physical, mental and spiritual healing.”

–Adventist Health Mission Statement

As popular as mission statements are in today’s business environment, few employees can recite them and even fewer live out these statements in their professional and personal lives.

Adventist Health believes that it fulfills its calling only when every one of the employees embraces, internalizes and lives its mission. Their goal is to make their mission statement more than just a plaque on the wall. Instead, they aim to breathe life into the mission through the everyday actions of the employees; to make mission so pervasive that when patients walk into the hospitals, they immediately sense a difference.

Spiritual Care: It’s Everybody’s Job

Five years ago, Adventist Health launched its Mission Education Program at Simi Valley Hospital in Southern California. Since that time, every hospital leader across the system has had the opportunity to participate in the four-unit series. The purpose of the program is to ensure that everyone is educated about Adventist Health’s heritage and mission of whole person care.

“At Adventist Health, we challenge ourselves to be the most mission-driven organization in the nation,” said Wayne Judd, assistant vice president of mission and planning. “There are no spectators in this arena. Every one of our 17,000 employees is a participant. Moreover, we need to educate the 4,186 physicians on our medical staffs system-wide who are critically important to mission success.”

Adventist Health’s Mission Education curriculum, which has been embraced throughout the system’s 20 hospitals, features the following content:

A Heritage of Health and Healing

The first segment in the Mission Education Program reviews the history of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and how Adventists became involved in medical work. This unit explains how the early Adventists progressed from the great disappointment in 1844 to become a worldwide health reform movement. It also describes the roots of the health care organization and explores what role each employee can play in fulfilling Adventist Health’s mission—whether they are a Seventh-day Adventist Church member or not.

The Sabbath: Therapeutic Gift

Unit two explains the meanings and traditions attached to the seventh-day Sabbath in Adventist Health hospitals. It addresses why the Sabbath is so important to the organization, and reviews historic, biblical and cultural components of the Sabbath. Employees discuss how they can make the Sabbath a positive blessing to those with whom they come in contact.

Promises We Make: Adventist Health Values

The third segment of the Mission Education Program probes the meanings of the core beliefs and values that shape Adventist Health’s whole person care. This unit addresses key doctrines and features a video, “Hands of Hope,” which demonstrates how whole-person values apply in the working lives of Adventist Health employees. This 17-minute video is also a part of employee orientation programs in most Adventist Health hospitals. Throughout the system, every prospective employee is told about the mission and asked if s/he can enthusiastically support that mission and the culture that has grown out of Adventist heritage.

Brighten the Corner Where You Are: Operationalizing Mission

Unit four asks the question: “How do we operationalize mission and spiritual care so that every employee is a full participant in the vision and mission of Adventist Health?” In addition, this unit underscores the importance of providing physical, mental and spiritual care in every encounter with patients, families and fellow employees. This last segment of the series also provides opportunity for discovering and exercising individual employee gifts—those aptitudes and abilities that make each employee unique and indispensable.

An Ongoing Process

While the Mission Education Program has been met with great enthusiasm and success, ensuring that mission is pervasive across the organization is an ongoing endeavor. Oversight and direction are essential to further enable the employees to stay committed to this ever-evolving process. As a result, a Mission Planning Committee is in place to provide oversight to strategic initiatives, including Adventist Health’s Mission Conference, the Mission Education Program, mission related publications and core defining documents such as the mission, vision and values statements. This formal committee—appointed by Adventist Health’s board of directors and chaired by Larry Dodds, senior vice president of Adventist Health—is comprised of church leaders, Adventist Health employees and board members.

“Our Mission Planning Committee is a very important part of our mission program, and we work together to ensure that mission remains our top priority,” said Dodds. “We look for new and meaningful ways to educate employees about the importance of our mission and how they can become an active part in sharing it with those they come in contact with.”

New Mission Brochure

With input from the Mission Planning Committee, Adventist Health recently produced a new mission brochure aimed at explaining Adventist beliefs. Entitled, “What Do Adventists Believe?” the piece is accessible to patients and visitors alike. It provides an easy, straightforward overview of distinctive Adventist beliefs, including the Ten Commandments, prayer, the Sabbath, baptism and wholesome lifestyle choices. The brochure, available in both English and Spanish, also gives a brief historical overview of Adventist health care.

“Our new mission brochure is just one more way we communicate the importance of Adventist health care and our commitment to mission,” stated Judd. “We’re proud of our Adventist heritage and want to share our history and values with our employees, patients and visitors.”

If you’d like to further explore Adventist Health’s commitment to mission via a complimentary copy of Adventist Health’s beliefs brochure or the “Hands of Hope” video, please contact Wayne Judd at 916-781-4760.