History of Health Ministry at CMC-NorthEast

Parish Nursing was founded in the 1980’s by Chaplain Granger Westberg. As the concept for health ministry developed across the country, NorthEast Medical Center started our program in October 1997. This grew out of a need for more community outreach toward the prevention of illness in our area. Parish Nursing is emerging as one of the fastest growing specialized professional nursing practices. In 1998, the American Nurses Association formally recognized parish nursing, now called Faith Community Nursing, as a new specialty area in nursing.

Currently, Parish Nurse Programs affiliated with CMC-NorthEast have been established in over 40 churches.  This represents approximately 19,000 church members where the religious and ethnic diversity, as well as the geographic distribution, of the congregations reflect the community as a whole.  We are heavily centralized in Cabarrus County but have a number of churches in neighboring Rowan, Stanley, and Northeast Mecklenburg communities.

During 2005, the CMC-NorthEast Parish Nursing & Health Ministry department pursued yet another avenue to expand our program with the development of our Congregational Health Promoter (CHP) role.  We have had a large number of people complete CHP training over the past couple of years and currently have about 15 CHPs with varying degrees of involvement in health ministry in their church. In order to support a growing Hispanic population in our area, CMC-NorthEast started the Latino Congregational Program, which promotes the development of strong health ministries within the Hispanic community.  Currently, the Latino Congregational Health Promoter program promotes wholistic health education and wellness in six faith communities and through the Hispanic Learning Center.