Christie Herrick, LMSW

Christie has devoted her professional career to improve the quality of life for individuals struggling with emotional distress in the healthcare setting for nearly three decades. Christie has lead hospice and palliative care programs that seek to provide excellent end of life care to the terminally ill and their families.  At the same time, she has been in private practice since 1999 providing support, counseling and guidance to address depression, anxiety, and bereavement issues for clients.  She is a successful leader who has competency in program and service line development, operations, clinical practice implementation, quality metrics, and leadership coaching.

As of March 2020, Christie is the newly appointed Supervisor of Inpatient Social Services & Behavioral Health at Sparrow Behavioral Health serving mid-Michigan communities. Most recently, Christie served as the Manager for Hospice & Palliative Services at Henry Ford Allegiance Health System in Jackson MI.  She led that program through several strategic assessments to strengthen clinical practice and operational processes, patient services, and financial outcomes.

Prior to that, Christie was selected as the Statewide Director for Palliative Services at North Star Care Community, the affiliation between Hospice of Michigan and Arbor Hospice & Palliative Care.  In this capacity she led the review and standardization of upstream palliative services across the lower peninsula of Michigan for adults with life-limiting diseases.  She built clinical care teams, monitored quality and financial metrics, and presented the program’s best practice learnings to state and national audiences.

Christie started her healthcare career at McLaren Health System, where she spent twenty years in a variety of successively responsible roles as social worker, Manager and Director of McLaren’s statewide hospice and palliative care programs.     Christie holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from Eastern Michigan University and a Master in Social Work degree from Michigan State University.  She is a former board of directors member for Hospice & Palliative Association of  Michigan, and served as co-chair of the Michigan Home Health & Hospice Organization’s Palliative Care committee.

%d bloggers like this: