More on healthcare

Catholic News Service reports the following about healthcare:

Sometimes people wonder how a woman religious can be the head of a large health-care organization like SSM Health Care, with 24,000 employees, 5,000 physicians, 20 hospitals and two nursing homes in four states. "It's not surprising that people wonder about that," said Sister Mary Jean Ryan, who has led the St. Louis-based Catholic health system for 20 years. "There is a very old conception of us, that we are these sweet little things that sit under the trees and pray," she told the St. Louis Review, the archdiocesan newspaper. "I think that takes away from the confidence and the actual dedication that sisters have had over the years for a variety of ministries." A Franciscan Sister of Mary, Sister Mary Jean oversaw systemwide changes that resulted in SSM Health Care becoming the first health-care system in the country to receive the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Now SSM Health is the subject of a one-hour documentary, "Good News: How Hospitals Heal Themselves," airing on public television stations nationwide in May (check local listings).

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