Adventist Healthcare: A Qualitative Study of 19th Century Founding Governing Principles in 21st Century Adventist Hospitals
type: CreativeWork
description: Problem and Purpose Founding values and principles can help organizations stay focused on fulfilling their mission. This is especially true in faith-based organizations that seek to continue their founding principles as a governing commitment to their core identity. This study identified Adventist healthcare founding principles in Ellen G. White's early health visions and explored how Adventist healthcare leaders perceived these principles as governing principles applied to current Adventist healthcare practices. Conceptual Framework and Research Design Two metaphors and three areas of literature review guided my approach of this qualitative study of Adventist healthcare founding principles. My first metaphor of DNA helped me think about Adventist healthcare as having an original DNA that could guide its growth and identity as it interacted with the environment across time. The second metaphor I chose was metamorphosis, a biological process where the phenotype of an organism can change dramatically but the organism's identity and DNA stay the same. This metaphor applied to organizations would suggest that noticeable change could take place that makes the organization almost unrecognizable from its earlier original form. But even here, there could be evidence of original identity. Both these metaphors framed my study. Three areas of scholarship guided my conceptual framework. The first was sociology of organizations and how they are formed and change over time. I focused on organizational identity. The second area was social science scholarship on the nature and practice of faith-based organizations, especially healthcare institutions. The final area reviewed literature on SDA healthcare identity. My method included document analysis and focus groups. I distilled 12 principles from Ellen White's early visions on health and then secured feedback on my document analysis from Adventist historians. Second, I did focus group interviews with Adventist healthcare leaders an…
abstract: Problem and Purpose Founding values and principles can help organizations stay focused on fulfilling their mission. This is especially true in faith-based organizations that seek to continue their founding principles as a governing commitment to their core identity. This study identified Adventist healthcare founding principles in Ellen G. White's early health visions and explored how Adventist healthcare leaders perceived these principles as governing principles applied to current Adventist healthcare practices. Conceptual Framework and Research Design Two metaphors and three areas of literature review guided my approach of this qualitative study of Adventist healthcare founding principles. My first metaphor of DNA helped me think about Adventist healthcare as having an original DNA that could guide its growth and identity as it interacted with the environment across time. The second metaphor I chose was metamorphosis, a biological process where the phenotype of an organism can change dramatically but the organism's identity and DNA stay the same. This metaphor applied to organizations would suggest that noticeable change could take place that makes the organization almost unrecognizable from its earlier original form. But even here, there could be evidence of original identity. Both these metaphors framed my study. Three areas of scholarship guided my conceptual framework. The first was sociology of organizations and how they are formed and change over time. I focused on organizational identity. The second area was social science scholarship on the nature and practice of faith-based organizations, especially healthcare institutions. The final area reviewed literature on SDA healthcare identity. My method included document analysis and focus groups. I distilled 12 principles from Ellen White's early visions on health and then secured feedback on my document analysis from Adventist historians. Second, I did focus group interviews with Adventist healthcare leaders an…
author: Pimentel Melendez, Cesiah Yareth
keywords: Health Care, Principles, Adventist, Hospitals, Health and Medical Administration, Health Services Administration
date published: 2019-01-01T08:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T00:53:24Z
provider: Andrews University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Andrews University