Rev. John Olsen, MDiv, BCC

The content on this page features a 2022 recipient of the Faegre Drinker Healthcare Hero Award.

Rev. John Olsen, MDiv, BCC

Rev. John Olsen, MDiv, BCC

Chaplain
RISE Team Program Manager
Jefferson Abington Hospital
RISE Enterprise Co-lead
Jefferson Health

John Olsen, MDiv, BCC, is a chaplain at Jefferson Abington Hospital, where he also manages the Resilience in Stressful Events (RISE), a peer support team for distressed healthcare workers. RISE was launched at Abington in the spring of 2018. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Rev. Olsen has worked closely with other staff wellness leaders to implement the RISE program throughout the Jefferson Health enterprise. Rev. Olsen has a deep, abiding commitment to building stronger communities through caring for the caregiver. In addition to his work as a night shift chaplain and manager of the RISE team, he facilitates a bereavement support group for community members. He has participated as a guest panelist in the Schwartz Rounds and seminars on clergy wellness. He is also involved with Abington’s bioethics committee. In 2009, he published “Improving Identification of Religious Affiliation in Inpatients,” which appeared in the peer-reviewed journal Chaplaincy Today, reporting on a GE-LEAN process improvement project resulting in a more than 50% improvement in religious affiliation identification. In 2013, he presented at Collaborating Across Borders IV, an international conference on Interprofessional Education (IPE). In 2022, he co-authored an abstract that was selected for presentation at the Vizient Healthcare Summit on “Implementing an Enterprise Psychological First Aid Program for Distressed Healthcare Workers,” which will also appear in an upcoming issue of the American Journal of Healthcare Quality.