Overview: In the intensive care unit (ICU) environment, communication barriers exist between patients, families, and ICU staff resulting in decreased understanding of the acute illness processes and less participation in medical decision-making. Some studies have shown increased communication in the critical care setting by emphasizing early and proactive family meetings or assigning a patient navigator to each ICU patient; however, no interventions have assigned a chaplain to serve as the patient navigator. Our unique intervention centered on the role of a chaplain as the patient navigator, who may be more adept at facilitating interpersonal communication and offering support.Description of Project: From March to December 2015, 1731 patients in the 12-bed Cardiac ICU and the 12-bed Medical ICU at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center were randomly assigned to “usual care” or the intervention. For the intervention group, each patient was assigned a chaplain-patient navigator, who was also responsible for setting up and attending multidisciplinary family meetings. Our primary outcome was hospital and ICU length of stay (LOS), ICU charges, and readmission at 60 and 90 days. Secondary outcomes included delirium, measured via CAM+ days, and palliative care consults ordered.Results: In the intervention group, only 48.6% of patients and families were part of at least 1 multidisciplinary family meeting within 3 days of admission. When compared to the control group, there were no differences in mean adjusted overall LOS [4.42 vs 4.39; p = 0.64]. However, the mean ICU LOS was longer in the intervention group [2.08 vs. 2.26; p = 0.02], albeit, not clinically significant. There was no difference in other primary or secondary outcomes.Conclusions: Anecdotally, the chaplain/patient navigator enhanced communication, however, our study found no differences in clinical or financial outcomes, perhaps because of the infrequency in carrying out multi-disciplinary family meetings. Since other studies have shown benefits in communication and clinical outcomes, future projects should focus on ensuring that family meetings are prioritized, determining the optimal background for the patient navigator, and collecting survey indicators of enhanced communication.