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LENT – Intentions of the Heart

by | Mar 12, 2025 | Soul

Lent is the most important time of the year to nurture our inner life from a Christian perspective. It is the time during which we not only prepare ourselves to celebrate the mystery of the death and resurrection of Jesus, but also the death and resurrection that constantly takes place within us.

The Significance of the 40 Days

The 40 days of Lent remind us of the continual process of examining our “old or comfortable” patterns and events in our innermost personal life. It calls us to repent and let go of these negative patterns, striving for a “clean heart” as mentioned in Psalm 51.

The Three Pillars: Fasting, Almsgiving, and Prayer – Personal Reflection and Application

Lent encourages us to transform our intentions through three key practices:

  • Fasting: Abstaining from certain pleasures to focus on spiritual growth.
  • Almsgiving: Sharing our possessions with those in need.
  • Prayer: Dedicating time to connect with God and seek His guidance.

Relationships, whether personal, business, or family, begin in the heart of our life. Lent allows us to search our hearts and determine what needs to change to make space and time to think about God. “40 days” becomes our personal trial period, with an aim to transform a negative quality, that drives our intention to repent and take action towards improvements using the three pillars as guideposts.

An Earthly Coaching Analogy

Just as a good coach helps athletes improve by focusing on key areas, Lent invites us to focus on our spiritual growth. A coach might emphasize the top three characteristics (3A’s) model for their players: awareness, acceptance, and action. Similarly, during Lent, we can:

  • Awareness: Identify areas in our life that need examination.
  • Acceptance: Acknowledge our shortcomings and the need for change.
  • Action: Take concrete steps to improve, knowing that failure is part of the process.

Jesus, who underwent great suffering, humility, and rejection while he was in human form, reminds us not to get ahead of Him as God. Spend some quiet time and invite Him into your life. Ask where you can start. It’s not about “spiritual performance.” Instead, focus on what one thing you need to work on the most. Start a journal, write it on a post-it note, and place it on your bathroom mirror. Embrace a “try again” mentality, just as a coach encourages their players to keep trying.

Call to Action

This Lent, take a moment each day to reflect on one area of your life that needs change. Write it down and pray for guidance. Browse our Guidebook and see if something looks interesting that can help you develop (or re-develop) a former child-like curiosity of one or two things that over time helps you find peace in who you were meant to be. Peace be with you!

Looking for ideas to educate yourself and take steps to nurture your soul? Check out our Religious Education page and our Family Faith Guide

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Learn more about the QIO program.

Training Focused for Clinicians and Providers:

AHRQ – Webinars for Primary Care Settings

CMS: As one of the largest federal programs dedicated to improving health quality at the community level, the goal to deliver person-centered, safer and more effective care in your community requires positive engaged citizens.

Clinicians, Did you know by participating in a local Quality Innovation Network-Quality Improvement Organization (QIN-QIO) initiative, you’ll gain access to valuable resources, including evidence-based improvement strategies that are aligned with other major health quality initiatives and that can help you prepare for participation in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Quality Payment Program.

Working with a QIN-QIO, you and your peers will share knowledge on critical health care quality and safety issues while discovering real-world best practices that will work in your own facility or practice. You’ll also help your peers replicate your successes and avoid your challenges – and they’ll help you do the same.

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It’s important to know how QIOs work with you, your family, and your health care team. Medicare has strict policies about our processes, designed to protect your privacy and give you objective information about the care you received. This website contains information and resources to empower you in your health care quality improvement decisions.

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Topics:

CMS: Quality Improveent Organizations - Sharing Knowledge - Improving Health Care.

Click on any of the titles below to jump directly to the self-paced learning module. Each module must be completed in a single session to receive a certificate. Look at the suggested time needed to complete the session.

To get started, check out the learning guides in bold at the bottom.  The first one is designed for leaders to understand how to register along with an explanation of the self-paced learning modules (which take at least 20 minutes to complete to recieve a certificate) and are intended for anyone with responsibility for hospital imfection prevention as well as infection control programs.

Behavior, Behavior Change and Hand Hygiene session:

Audience: Facility staff and hospital leadership responsible for infection prevention and control, quality improvement and compliance programs

Description: Everyone in health care knows how to wash their hands. So why is it so hard to practice thoroughly and consistently? In this webinar hosted by Jane Brock, MD, MSPH, you’ll learn:

  • The myriad barriers to hand hygiene your teams encounter in their work
  • Ways to facilitate full compliance with hand hygiene protocols through physical and process design changes
  • How to tap into the key principals of behavior change to empower, encourage and motivate your staff to make hand hygiene second nature

Universal PPE Best Practices & Role of a Trained Observer

Audience: Frontline staff and hospital leadership responsible for observing and ensuring protocol adherence of infection prevention and control, quality improvement and compliance programs

Description: The theory behind personal protective equipment (PPE) is simple, but working in a fast-paced, overburdened environment can cause lapses in protocol and best practices. Proper wear/​disposal and a reliable observer or buddy can minimize the chance of infection and possible outbreaks. In this webinar hosted by Brian Gardiner, BA, BSN, RN, you’ll learn:

  • Key points to remember in donning and doffing PPE
  • Ways to be a good PPE buddy
  • How to identify hazardous conditions, safety demands and stressors
  • Potential challenges with a buddy system and possible solutions

Using the Comprehensive Hospital Pandemic Preparedness Checklist for COVID-19 to identify gaps in compliance 

Audience: Facility staff and hospital leadership responsible for infection prevention and control programs, quality improvement and compliance

Description: It is not a matter of if, but when. Use of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC’s) pandemic preparedness checklist can help position your facility to be prepared to identify and treat cases of COVID-19, including a potential surge in cases, and how to prevent the spread of disease in your facility. In this webinar hosted by Brianna Gass, you’ll learn:

  • To apply the checklist to identify gaps in your facility processes
  • To identify training needs for facility staff by using the checklist
  • To adapt the checklist to best meet your facility’s specific needs

Infection Prevention and Control Risk Assessments for COVID-19

Audience: Facility staff and hospital leadership responsible for infection prevention and control, quality improvement and compliance programs

Description: As hospitals prepare for more COVID-19 surges, it is important to have infection control practices in place that align with CMS goals for COVID-19 prevention and control. In this webinar hosted by Meg Nugent, Hospital Quality Improvement Contractor (HQIC) program manager at Telligen, you’ll learn how your care team can lock in infection control processes that ensure safe, quality care that meets regulatory compliance expectations during COVID-19 surges by:

  • Understanding CMS’s infection control conditions of participation
  • Using the CMS hospital infection control worksheet as a self-assessment tool
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Training Focused for Long Term Care (LTC):

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Antibiotics – Train the Trainer series:

Exploring antibiotics and their role in bacterial infections

Antibiotic resistance: How it happens and strategies to decrease the spread of resistance

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Clostridium difficile Part One: Clinical Overview  (part one – clinical overview)

Clostridium difficile (Part Two: Strategies to Prevent, Track, and Monitor C. difficile)

Training Focused for Facilities:

 COVID-19 StAT Learning Series for Hospitals

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), with input from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other stakeholders, has developed the COVID-19 StAT Learning Series for Hospitals. StAT stands for Standards, Approaches and Tactics for COVID-19 Infection Control & Prevention. This online, mobile-friendly, self-paced training is intended for hospital infection control leaders, frontline hospital staff and hospital administrators.

With the COVID-19 StAT Learning Series for Hospitals, you will find the latest tools and techniques, along with refreshed best practices for a new era of infection prevention and control.

Each self-paced learning module is approximately 15 minutes long. Take the COVID-19 StAT Self-Assessment to determine which trainings are right for you.

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Be ready! If you are already registered have the security Official/Staff person log-in. If you aren’t sure who has access, create a system for your office so the following information is handy; gather the following:

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It’s handy to have the Provider Enumeration Date and the last Update. As a member, you have access to an EXCEL workbook, ASK Us!

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Long Term Care – The Skilled Nursing Facility Value-Based Purchasing Program (SNF VBP)

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As a Long-Term Care Facility (LTC) or Nursing Home 

  • CMS mandates are aligned to performance indicators related to the Healthcare Reform Act. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is a federal agency within the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that administers the Medicare program and works in partnership with state governments to administer Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance (CHIP), and health insurance portability standards.
  • Are you a Nursing Home or a facility that has beds for Rehab patients? Purposeful Concepts LLC offers the right level of leadership to guide your team with "role-based" strategies to best understand desired performance outcomes and pinpoint the change in a workflow that can make the difference. With LTC facilities now facing CMS mandates from both a federal and state standards align with components of care which are listed on a “LTC-Rule Job Aid” with measures or “F-tag” focus areas. CMS F-tags are used by each state department of Health and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to survey quality of care provided to residents in facilities.  We have a custom tool available that correlates to the current available F-tags that focus on the survey process.  Join us, we offer different levels of service to best fit the needs of your facility.
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