Spiritual Care and Electronic Medical Recording in Dutch Hospitals

Abstract

Among Dutch healthcare professionals, it is not a foregone conclusion that conversations with patients should be recorded electronically. This article first describes the discussion among patients about the pros and cons of electronic medical records (EMR). The authors then discuss the Dutch and European legislators’ requirements for the protection of patients’ privacy and therefore of their stories and how these requirements work out in the practice of EMR. The third section is devoted to the question of why spiritual caregivers should record their conversations with patients. The authors put forward various arguments for this. In their view, charting appears to serve both the interests of patients and those of the healthcare providers and of the spiritual care professionals themselves. The authors then describe various possible methods of registration, including G. Fitchett’s model in an adapted, more secular form. By means of two case descriptions, one fairly extensive and one more concise, they show how registration takes place in practice at the Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen, Netherlands. The article concludes with the formulation of a plan and goals for the near future.