The Challenge:

How do you get stakeholders to approve Reiki at the oldest and perhaps most conservative medical institution in the country? How do you create a program flexible enough to meet the unique needs of different departments and patient populations? How do you deliver this therapy to patients and caregivers without detracting from the focus on primary care? How do you provide a consistent quality of care from every practitioner? How do create a financially sustainable program? Oh, and how do you create an integrative massage program too? These were some of the questions I faced when I was brought in to help get things off the ground at Penn.

The Solution:

Strategy

In a series of meetings with patient service representatives, communications teams, physicians, the Integrative Oncology Working Group, chaplaincy and oncology nurse managers, Marie Jackson (another program advisor/coordinator) and I identified the needs and challenges of bringing Reiki to Penn’s oncology department. We met with stakeholders, gave presentations on Reiki and spent a lot of time in the outpatient chemotherapy oncology unit at The Abramson Cancer Center. We developed an initial pilot program for oncology patients and caregivers on a single outpatient floor. Over time we tested and refined the program with a small team of vetted volunteer practitioners and later expanded it, with more testing, vetting, and volunteers, to additional chemotherapy outpatient floors, Radiation Oncology, and oncology inpatients at the Hospital of The University of Pennsylvania. In collaboration with Dr. Jun Mao, MD and a team of researchers, we created a program evaluation and gathered data on the Reiki experience of over 300 patients. We also created pathways for donor support. To increase program visibility, credibility, and exposure, I coordinated paid practitioners to provide Reiki services at several patient educational conferences where I also spoke as a panelist. I wrote content for blog posts, gave interviews, and spoke at events. I also helped craft content and project managed the creation of patient information collateral, donor giving envelopes, patient feedback cards and practitioner calling cards that could be used as tools for patients to learn about, access, support and critique the program.

The work with the cancer patients peaked interest in bringing Reiki to other departments, where I repeated the process of stakeholder meeting, information gathering, collaborative planning, testing, refining and evaluation in each location. In these locations I negotiated a fee for service plan, and was able to add programs for integrative massage and, at Penn Hospice at Rittenhouse, additional Reiki training for staff.

Systems and Operations

The most beautiful challenge of working in academic medicine was figuring out how to deliver relaxing Reiki treatments on call, in a clinical environment, without interrupting conventional treatments like infusions, radiation, medical procedures and physician consults. For each department I helped create personalized systems and protocols through working closely with teams of patient experts. Through a similar process of testing and refining I helped develop systems for patient feedback/evaluation, practitioner paging (yes, we actually used pagers when cell service was wonky!), secure storage of confidential patient data, and creating a welcoming environment.

Project Management

In addition to developing and refining operations, for several years I managed all of the paid and volunteer practitioners. I worked with the hospital, hospice, physical therapy, and cancer center administrators to create standards and best practices for both the paid and volunteer Reiki and massage practitioners. I also worked with the Department of Volunteer Services to manage volunteer practitioner compliance. Training manuals, volunteer applications, job descriptions/requirements/compliance structures for paid practitioners, mentorship/feedback protocols and evaluation tools were all developed .

To improve care and support for the practitioners, I worked with a hospital chaplain to provide supervision when problems arose. We also offered continuing education in topics like managing grief, self care, and how (and how not) to talk to cancer and hospice patients. As an additional part of team building, we held appreciation days where practitioners were honored and celebrated for their service.

Results:

• Created Reiki and Integrative massage programs in 6 different departments throughout the Penn Medicine System

• The majority of these programs are still in existence today, over a decade later

• Served 10’s of 1000’s of patients, caregivers and survivors

• Published a research article evaluating our findings and documenting the benefits of the program in the peer-reviewed journal Integrative Cancer Therapies. The article has been downloaded over 4900 times, cited 39 times, and has a high Altmetric score of 57

• Provided a model for what’s possible in an academic, clinical medical setting

• Received Penn Medicine’s Integrative Medicine & Wellness Advocacy Award (2011) and Abramson Cancer Center/Penn Medicine’s Volunteer Services Team Builder Award (2011)

Sample Collateral and Content: